


The Capricious Nature of Fate (And Cats)

by AERCHIVE (aerClassic)



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Curses, M/M, Not a Hybrids AU, Secret Catboy!Hongjoong, Stalking, VTuber!Hongjoong, murder mention, technically complete
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:35:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26495734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerClassic/pseuds/AERCHIVE
Summary: Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back ♪"Dude. There’s whipped and then there’s whatever it is you’re doing. I don’t think it can even be quantified on the simp scale.”“‘m not a simp,” Yunho denies, still refusing to lift his head up and make eye contact with anyone in this room. “I just think he’s cool and I want to be his friend.”“You definitely want to besomethingto him,” Wooyoung laughs.
Relationships: Jeong Yunho/Kim Hongjoong, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 245





	1. Chapter 1

As a child, in that strange period of time before object permanence was a _thing_ , Jeong Yunho was so clumsy and prone to accidental injury that his mother used to joke he was born with a black cat crossing his path. Some kind of ill omen must have passed over the hospital that day his grandmother would say while his grandfather nodded seriously in the background with the morning newspaper spread open concealing most of his face and upper body. It was always meant as a joke to lessen Yunho’s tears when he inevitably brought a new scrape or torn clothing or broken trinket to his parents.

“But I _like_ cats,” he remembers crying. “Our next door neighbors have a cat and he always seems happy to see me! Why would he make me hurt myself?”

“Oh honey, it’s just an old superstition. Not all cats are actually trying to cause you harm and I’m sure the neighbors’ cat isn’t either,” his mother would coo and dry his tears, fix what she could and clean what she couldn’t. “You’re young. This is just a clumsy phase you’ll grow out of.”

Yunho would give a few last sympathy gaining sniffs and then run off to do something else until the next disaster struck. 

There’s a hazy memory lurking somewhere of his grandfather folding down the edge of his newspaper to ask, “I thought the Kim’s told us they had a cat allergy?”

“He’s only five, dad, let the boy have his imagination,” the foggy muffled version of his mother had said. “Maybe he’s just found a stray hanging around, I'll see about chasing it off in the morning.”

**\--------------**

At twenty three, Yunho is no less accident prone than he was at five, but with much better balance and upper body strength to catch himself should he actually fall. It’s a type of grace he’s carefully honed since he joined an after school dance program at nine and stuck with all the way through high school where he won scholarships for top tier university programs and offers from companies to join their idol programs. The scholarships he accepted. The fancy cardstock business cards from skeezy company reps are still locked away in the desk drawer in his childhood bedroom.

Now he goes to class in the early mornings, savagely directs groups of hopefuls trying to make it big as a dance team or as backup dancers for companies in the big leagues at noon, and works the shittiest hours imaginable at a convenience store exactly one block from his apartment. It doesn’t pay the best, but it covers whatever his scholarships don’t so Yunho can’t complain—even when it’s nearing 1 A.M. and the guy who covers the third shift is MIA for the second week in a row. 

“You look like you’re about to fall asleep standing,” his friend San laughs. He’d shown up an hour ago to keep Yunho sane while they watched the clock tick down. “Dude, should you just lock up and tell your boss to deal with Jimin tomorrow?”

Yunho groans, draping his body over the half-counter in front of the register. “No, he’s a good guy. I’m sure whatever is keeping him is important so I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

“Yet,” San says sharply. “Don’t be a doormat just because he's your buddy.”

“Yes, yes,” Yunho agrees. “We’ll give it another twenty minutes before I give up.”

San says nothing but it’s with an air of judgment so thick Yunho briefly imagines it would spread over toast. He waves his friend off to help himself to a free jumbo-sized slush and starts wiping down the counter for the nth time tonight just to give himself something to do. The floors are mopped. The windows have been cleaned, aisles straightened, product displays rearranged. He hasn’t had a customer other than San in over an hour, so the mind numbing busy work helps.

The automatic chime above the door dings. Yunho turns, hoping it’s Jimin finally deciding to come in to work, and is greeted by a strange person wrapped up in so many layers he can’t make heads or tails of their actual body shape. Their face is concealed by an oversized mask, head hidden beneath a chunky knit beanie that bulges awkwardly over their head, and their clothes are all oversized and bulky. In _August_.

There’s a wooden bat under the register the owner had bought as a deterrent after a string of petty thefts left a display of new candy and raunchy magazines empty. Yunho has never had to actually use it, but people like the...whoever it is that just walked in make him nervous enough that he edges to the hidden space behind the counter and grips the base of the handle in a shaking fist. San doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care, and continues to build the most disgusting drink he can make out of four flavors of slush and a handful of nerds he brought from home. 

The person nods their head politely when they notice Yunho staring and turns to the chips and almost-not-quite expired fish and vegetable kimbap. Even their hands are concealed in thick knit gloves. 

Yunho glances at the digital thermometer that reminds him it is still hot and muggy summer heat outside. His fingers shake on the bat. No one would be caught outside bundled up the way this person is unless they were up to something—and that something is definitely nothing good. Especially someone actually grabbing four of the day old fish and pickle wraps from the shelf as if they’re not going to suffer horrible debilitating stomach cramps for trying to eat them. Yunho probably should have pulled them by now, but that was Jimin’s department and Jimin _still wasn’t here_.

San brings his nightmare drink to the counter and slurps loudly. “Has it been twenty minutes yet?”

“Not yet,” Yunho says tightly, refusing to take his eyes off the stranger attempting to balance chips and four banana milks in the crook of their free arm. San follows his line of sight and makes a noise. Yunho loves him, but San possesses all the subtlety of a dump truck at midnight.

“Hey, are you a mukbanger?” San excitedly yells across the shop. 

The stranger startles hard, fumbling with their handful of assorted foods and loses two bags of spicy shrimp crackers to the floor that they hastily squat to pick up. Yunho’s grip relaxes slightly, but still there’s an energy around this person that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

San leaves his slush at the counter to help and offers to carry half the burden. “I take it that’s a no?”

The person shakes their head. They seem grateful to offload the weight of the banana milk at least and inclines their head in thanks.

San pouts. “Boo, that’s no fun. I thought for sure with all the food you were buying we were about to meet someone famous on the internet.”

“Sorry,” they say, so quiet their voice barely carries up to the counter. “Maybe the next weirdo who wanders in after midnight will be.”

While his friend tries to hold back unattractive laughter that comes out as a muffled snort, something in the back of Yunho’s mind _itches_. That voice sounds familiar, but he’s pretty sure he’d know if he’d met a dude that wore a full winter getup in the middle of summer—and willingly purchased nearly spoiled fish kimbap with a straight face.

“You should get some of the cheap noodles over there if you’re trying to load up.” San awkwardly points at a nearby shelf with his elbow. “They go on sale after 7 o’clock and they’re pretty good if you fry them with meat and kimchi at home.”

The stranger hesitates before grabbing two. “Thanks for the tip.”

Leave it to San to make friends with the after midnight stranger Yunho had been, like, nine hundred percent certain was going to turn out to be a serial killer.

The mound of products the pair deposit at the counter is almost taller than the register. San drops his arm load and begins slurping his creation obnoxiously before wandering away to refill the topmost layer, obviously bored of helping someone no longer deemed a minor celebrity.

“Did you find everything you need this evening?” Yunho recites automatically. A silly question, maybe, considering the mountain of junk food sitting on his counter.

The guy nods demurely again and avoids eye contact. The gloves he’s wearing make opening his wallet awkward and he huffs lightly in annoyance the longer it takes to get his card out to pay. Yunho keeps his mouth shut since he’s not entirely convinced a weapon isn’t about to materialize out of a back pocket. 

“Sorry,” gets whispered again as the guy continues to aggressively shake his wallet. “I don’t usually have these ridiculous gloves on.”

His voice is really nice even though it’s so quiet. Yunho tries not to be obvious in his attempt to get a look under the beanie and the mask. Other than a lot of smudged eyeliner, there’s not a lot to go on as far as facial features other than the fact his lashes are long. 

“Did you lose a bet?” 

The customer jolts again. “What?”

Yunho does his best not to let the internal cringe become an external one and continues to scan items like he’s not dying inside for opening his mouth. “Um, just, your outfit. Did you lose a bet?”

No answer is immediately forthcoming so Yunho finishes his task in relative silence what with San is still at the slush machine loudly trying to get, quote, the perfect ratio of ice pellets in each flavor. The guy seems to shrink in on himself once his card slips free and hands it over.

“A losing bet is probably the best way to describe it.” The guy grins beneath his mask. Yunho knows because his eyes crinkle up, the slice of pupil still visible through the gap reflective with overhead lighting. “I promise next time I won’t be dressed up like The North Face threw up on me.”

Oh god, and he’s _funny_. Yunho gives the card back while covering his mouth with his free hand to hide a grin. “It’s fine. At least you didn’t come in here drunk trying to flirt a six pack of Miller Lite out of me.”

The customer accepts it and his bags with a throaty hum. “Does that work?”

“So far, no.” Yunho leans forward to whisper like he’s about to divulge state secrets. “There’s a first time for everything though.”

Funny, a cute eyesmile _and_ a sweet laugh. If the guy didn’t come across as slightly unhinged with all the winter gear, Yunho might have tried for a number. 

“Maybe I’ll try my luck the next time I make a midnight snack run.” He lifts the bags in one gloved hand. “Thanks for not kicking me out.”

“Yeah, of course,” Yunho waves him off. He watches the guy leave with something like regret pooling up in his gut. There was something so familiar about the cadence of that voice the low whispering couldn’t mask. Maybe they rode the same bus? Passed each other in the neighborhood a lot?

Whatever it is—whatever memory was in the process of resurfacing from the bog of his trash brain—gets wiped away by San crowing victory over the slush machine and Park Jimin finally making his grand entrance bursting through the double doors.

“Oh my god, Yunho I am so _so_ sorry,” Jimin cries at him, hunched over clutching at his own knees. “I tried to call but my idiot roommate broke my phone when he broke his arm earlier.”

San grumbles something snide under his breath. Yunho shoots him a warning glance before circling around the counter to rub encouragingly along his coworker’s shoulder blades. “It’s fine. Is he okay? Are _you_ okay?”

“He’s fine, he’s just dumb and reckless.” Jimin wipes the sweat from his brow with a groan. “I’ll call boss man in the morning and see if I can cover some of your hours since you were stuck here because of me. I’m really sorry. Again.”

“Hey, it’s fine! It was out of your control.” Yunho continues to ignore the evil eye San is directing at his back. “Uh, but do you need to get a working phone before you clock in?”

Jimin shakes his head, pushes at Yunho’s arms to direct him towards the time clock system. “It’s fine, it’s fine! Anything happens, we have the emergency phone. Go _home_.”

**\--------------**

His phone pings while he waits for San to get finished in the bathroom so they can go home. An alert from Twitch, apparently, which can only mean one thing considering Yunho is subscribed to one streamer. KimEights, otherwise known as Kim Dokkaebi, is a virtual YouTuber Yunho has been watching for close to three years now, never once missing a stream or video upload. KimEights is _funny_ , curses up a storm when other VTuber’s in his same genre keep it fairly PG friendly, and screams at least five times a stream at nothing. The actual person is more than likely a pimple faced teen who lives in the sticks, but his avatar is an adorable fluffy-eared, equally fluffy-tailed catboy who wears cutesy magical girl themed dresses. 

Yunho has a set of very specific interests and Dokkaebi puts a tick in each and every one of those boxes.

San joins him, finally, with his still nearly overflowing jumbo drink of ice and sugar. “I guess the new moon brings out the weirdos, huh?”

“You talking about yourself?” Yunho nudges San with his elbow as his friend rolls his eyes.

“No.”

They start the walk to their apartment complex in relative silence. It’s taking all of his willpower not to check his phone, to avoid thinking about what outfit the catboy might be wearing for this session. He’d been hinting at designing three new outfits for the upcoming holidays and any day now Yunho is going to throw an entire paycheck at him for an exclusive preview. If Dokkaebi reveals the new slumber party design while they’re leisurely walking down the sidewalk—

“I bet he’s pretty underneath all those layers,” San comments off-hand. 

Yunho shakes himself out of his catboy induced stupor. “Who?”

“The guy in the out of season winter getup.”

“How? Why?” Yunho shoves his hands in his pockets as a way to keep away the temptation of pulling out his phone so he can obsessively watch the _going live soon…_ graphic KimEights throws out an hour before each stream. “You could barely even see he had eyeballs.”

“But they were _pretty eyeballs_ ,” San stresses with a laugh. “Don’t even try to lie and say you didn’t think so too. I heard your sad attempts at flirtation, Mister.”

And, well, San has him there.

Yunho kicks at a piece of litter on the sidewalk with his shoulders hunched.

“He could probably get a six pack of Miller out of me if he tried hard enough,” he admits. “Kinda short though.”

“Everyone’s short compared to you,” San deadpans. “Please do not ever make _must be taller than myself_ as one of your dating criteria. Not again, anyway.” 

“My dating criteria is none of your business,” Yunho says, ears blazing with embarrassment.

He’d made the mistake of trying to flirt with Mingi, once, with that same line of, _hey you’re really tall, wanna makeout?_ They were drunk at the time, or mostly drunk anyway, so Yunho tries to remember the honking laughter Mingi threw in his face as a funny ha-ha between best bros than as a laughing rejection. He definitely didn’t go home and cry about it while watching Dokkaebi laugh compilations for two hours. So much for pining over your best friend of give or take six years. San is the only one who knows about his breakdown, minus the catboy thing, and has been kind enough not to bring it up.

Until now apparently.

His phone vibrates again with another notice. Hidden in his pocket, Yunho grips the edges of his phone tight, body buzzing with relief as the looming shadow of the apartment complex comes into view. 

“How are things with Mingi and Jongho?” He asks as a distraction. Anything to keep from pulling up the stream on his phone and getting caught simping over an anime boy. 

San ducks his head, bashfully twirling his straw around in his drink. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t,” San whines. “We’re just friends.”

Yunho innocently flutters his lashes. “Friends who hold hands and have slumber parties and kiss each other?”

San scowls, face reddening. “ _We’re_ friends and you and I have kissed before.”

“Yeah, _once_ ,” Yunho accuses, “and we agreed it was weird so we never did it again. How many have you spread around the MinJjong household?”

San’s face is starting to resemble the purple half of his borrowed Bape hoodie, a favorite he likes to steal from Wooyoung. “Shut up. Go flirt with your combini boy and leave me alone.”

“No,” Yunho cheerfully responds. The entrance to their complex is less than a few long strides away, only a few more minutes until he can unwind with his favorite content creator. “And he’s not my boy, we talked for like five seconds. I don't know his name. I haven’t even seen his _face_.”

“But we agree he’s probably pretty.” San slurps the last dregs of his slush obnoxiously loud, waiting for Yunho to swipe his card to open the door to the lobby. “If he came back without all of his bits covered and flirted with you…”

“He might, but I won’t flirt back because I am a consummate professional at my job. I have my hands full already anyway.”

They stand side by side waiting on the elevator, San on his way to the sixth floor and Yunho to the eighth. 

“Hyejeong still bugging you?”

Yunho droops. “Yeah. I mean, not in a bad way because she knows I’m not really looking for anything serious right now, but I feel like I can’t keep telling her no when we work together three days out of the week. Seems rude.”

“No is an answer in and of itself,” San reminds him as they punch in their respective floors. “Have you told her it makes you uncomfortable to keep asking?”

Yunho shakes his head. “I’m alright. It’s not every time we see each other and it’s kind of just a joke at this point. I just, I dunno, I hate telling people no when I don’t necessarily have a good reason to.”

San rubs his back. “Yunho, I love you, but you gotta learn to put your foot down with people.”

“If this is about Jimin—”

“It’s about everyone,” San says, voice dipped low in quiet anger. “You’re allowed to think of yourself first. Stop letting other people dictate how you live your life.” 

The elevator dings. 

San sighs. “That includes me, too, if for some reason I ever try to tell you what to do. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Yunho scrubs a hand down his face. “Tomorrow. Practice starts early, remember that.”

His friend gives him a tiny salute. Yunho leans against the back railing of the elevator and groans. It’s an old argument, one they’ve had since San witnessed Yunho’s co-instructor at the studio not so subtly try to flirt her way into Yunho’s pants; catching Yunho doing the work of two people at the college because his project group kept bailing on him; keeping Yunho company when a coworker flaked on their hours and forced Yunho to cover for them because they knew he would without having to ask. It just never seemed worth the effort to get angry about in Yunho’s mind. The projects needed doing, the store needed tending, and Hyejeong—

Well, Hyejeong he’s probably going to have to either take on a purposefully disastrous date or finally report the pseudo-harassment to management, neither of which seem like the kind of things he’s capable of doing.

The elevator stops on the next floor. Yunho straightens so he’s not caught trying to sleep upright and is greeted by a familiar sight.

“You!” They say simultaneously.

The strangely dressed guy from earlier—still bundled up like it’s the middle of winter—laughs lightly, obviously strained. He’s got an armload of intimidating looking electronics cradled in his arms trailing wiring down to his waist. “We meet again.”

“We do,” Yunho agrees, charmed at the way this guy’s eyes crinkle up when he smiles. San was right about his eyeballs being pretty. “Need an extra pair of hands?”

Wintering in summer man shakes his head. “Thanks, but I’m good. If you could just press the—oh.” 

Yunho blinks. “Oh?”

“My floor is already lit up.”

“The eighth?”

His apparent neighbor nods. “I take it you live there too?”

Yunho nods as well. He doesn’t recall this guy though. He feels like he’d remember someone with such a cute voice moving in on his floor—who he’s still not convinced isn’t a secret psychopath looking for his next victim. Maybe this guy lures them in with eyesmiles. “I've lived here for a couple of years now. Did you just move in?”

The doors swing open and Yunho waves his neighbor through out of politness. They turn in the same direction.

The stranger seems to nervously clear his throat. “Yeah, I, uh, I had to move in a hurry so I haven’t been here that long.”

They stop at the same time. Yunho digs around for his keys and wonders if maybe he should be saying something else considering the other guy is just...standing there. Potentially plotting his demise.

“Well, if you ever need a copy of the garbage and recycling days,” Yunho says, pointing a thumb at his door, “you know where to find me.”

The stranger blinks at him with huge eyes. “Across the hall.”

Yunho blinks back. “What?”

Another shy laugh, a little louder this time and, seriously, everything this guy does gives Yunho so much goddamn deja-vu he’s beginning to get weirded out. _More_ weirded out given the situation anyway.

“We seem to live across from one another.” The guy dips his head in a light bow, obviously not offering his hand to shake because of the gloves and the tangled wiring. He tugs his mask down only as far as his top lip, curled up in a fragile smile. “Kim Hongjoong.”

_Combini boy is gorgeous, what the fuck?_

“Jeong Yunho,” he says faintly. “Nice to, uh, meet you. Officially.”

Kim Hongjoong...Kim Hongjoong...

Where has he heard that name before?

**\--------------**

Somehow he’s in luck: Dokkaebi still has the _coming soon_ graphic trailing across a still shot of the last stream where he’d been trying, and failing, to survive in Minecraft—the vibrantly colored cube person running from a creeper and somehow on fire. Yunho props his laptop on the bathroom sink while he brushes his teeth, so distracted with making sure he’s not missing a second of the live that he ends up dripping foam down his chin and the collar of his shirt. It’s fine though, because in the next moment the VTuber is suddenly on screen waving dressed in traditional hanbok and Yunho loses the rest of his mouthful to the floor in a strangled, distressed scream. 

“Oh my good fucking _god_ ,” he whispers hoarse to nothing and no one, foam plopped in a pile on his big toe. 

The jeogori is pretty pastel pink in contrast to the dark coloring of the catboy’s black hair and ears. His tail waves in the background behind the brighter pink bottom half embroidered with green and yellow flowers to match his eyes.

“Hello, everyone!” Dokkaebi grins at the camera. His avatar twirls in a slow circle to show off the full exterior of his new outfit. The chat is already filling up with love declarations and excitable fans offering to buy him things. When KimEights laughs, it’s with Dokkaebi’s mouth opening and closing, fake skin flushing pink. “Sorry for the wait. I had some technical difficulties and had to go borrow some things from a friend. But, look!”

Another twirl. The design team had even gone and wrapped a pink bow around his black tail, a golden bell nestled in the middle. Yunho hears a high pitched whine ringing through the bathroom and only realizes it’s coming from _himself_ when he goes to wipe his mouth. No one can ever know how much an animated catboy voiced by some nameless, faceless person more than likely living half-way across the country affects him.

“I’m actually in the middle of a late night snack session,” he continues, voice pitched almost comically high. "Do you guys ever get a craving for something so specific you have to rush right out and get it or you'll die? That was me with the veggie and tuna kimbap they sell at a lot of the convenience stores near me." There's a sound like someone unraveling clingfilm over the microphone. "It's probably expired, but at least it was cheap! This nice guy at the store helped me pick out some other snacks too, but a lot of them have enough sodium to clog an artery so I probably won't eat those tonight."

Yunho settles down to watch the rest of the stream on his bed with his coursework spread out across his sheets. Most of the time Dokkaebi posts stream of consciousness podcast type sessions when he’s not being asked to play a game or hosting an event for the other VTubers in his company. Sometimes he’ll call himself DJ Eights while messing around in music programs creating songs for the highest donors and crowdsourcing lyrics together with the chat.

Dokkaebi’s animated face moves slightly with his very real in person chewing. “Should I start doing midnight mukbangs? Maybe see how many bowls of spicy ramen I can eat before my mouth swells up?” 

"No, that's so bad for you," Yunho tells the screen. The chat agrees vehemently, usernames and timestamps and exclamation points going by at breakneck speeds, and the catboy laughs.

His fluffy black ears twitch with every flex of Dokkaebi’s head, each miniscule twist and turn of his head adds another expressive layer to an already expressive animation. Yunho sometimes wonders how long it took for the mocap team in charge of designing and coding to give the natural swivel of the extra appendages the right amount of believability. 

“Alright, alright, I won’t actually do that. What I _will_ do is work through the maze the fox made for me in Minecraft last week.” 

Yunho listens to the rise and fall of KimEights’ voice as he begins the first challenging twists of the premade maze, screaming at the unexpected appearance of lit torches and creepers clustered together on the third bend. When he first moved to Seoul he had been alone and lonely, the calls to his brother and his parents and the two people he considered close friends doing bare minimum to ward off the worst of the ache. He spent nights wide awake from the strange city noises slipping through the cracks in his windows, a constant buzz of people and cars like television static that was hard to sleep through when he’d only ever had to deal with a dark barking at odd hours.

Finding KimEights—Kim Dokkaebi, whichever moniker he prefers—was a stroke of luck. He’d been devastated by a less than stellar grade on an essay he’d spent too much time and energy on, then rolled his ankle during a demonstration at the studio, and ended that particular day with a notice from the rental agency about the hot water being shut off for the entire building because of a boiler issue. It was by chance that he’d been scrolling through YouTube livestreams, by chance that he had been watching a compilation of top ten anime betrayals that influenced his browsing preferences, and it was by _chance_ that he saw the animated black haired, black tailed, black eared catboy playing Minecraft and didn’t immediately scroll away.

KimEights had just debuted when Yunho found him, with only two hundred subscribers and a single static image with minimal coloring as his avatar instead of the moving masterpiece it is today. He was shy then, too, barely speaking above a whisper while he played around trying to learn the controls to punch trees. Now he’s much more confident and speaks to the mic, to his fans, as if they’re all old friends hanging out in the same room sharing the same air and the same struggles.

His voice is sweet, though a little lispy tonight, and his accent reminds Yunho achingly of home—Gwangju in summer; the smell of river mud along the banks; his home surrounded by a thin line of trees and absentee neighbors. Perhaps that’s why now, almost three years later, Yunho is still subscribed. Why he’s still wasting what little extra he squirrels away from his job to super chat encouraging messages when Dokkaebi seems down.

And the catboy thing.

The catboy thing is almost eight tenths the reason he’s stayed, because he likes cats and he really likes boys, so this particular VTuber is the convergence of all his varied interests wrapped up nicely in a frilly skirt. The only thing missing—

Over the speakers, Dokkaebi yowls a collection of expletives when he’s unceremoniously dropped into lava.

Yunho rolls his lips between his teeth to keep from laughing too loud and disturbing the neighbors. 

The only thing missing is being able to put a face to the name, fake as it is. Tragically, Yunho has managed to develop a terrible borderline obsessive crush on an _animated character_. San would have a field day if he ever found out.

His crush feels safely contained in unacknowledged no man's land though considering the likelihood of actually meeting the dude for real, in person, and knowing who it is by their voice alone is slim to none. It would take an extraordinary stroke of luck to even cross paths on the street much less speak one on one.

Dokkaebi screeches again. Yunho knocks his volume down a few times, snickering.

Luck didn’t seem to be on the VTuber’s side either.

**\--------------**

His new neighbor is _strange_ and not just because of his peculiar taste in clothing. Yunho sees glimpses of him in the hallways, always darting back behind his door if anyone on their floor happens to be out as if he’s playing one man version of hide and seek. They share another elevator ride when Yunho is late coming in from work, but instead of sharing semi-friendly banter they ride in total silence. Hongjoong draws inward on himself, hands still covered in the same knitted gloves tap restlessly on his folded arms, and then he power walks away without so much as a backward glance. 

The only things he knows for sure are these: that Hongjoong is short, he’s got black hair, that he's possibly around the same age, and lives the entire week since their first run-in on the elevator in the same pair of extra baggy pants. Pants that sit low on his hips, hugs his waist in a way that shows off muscular hip bones.

This section of the library is always loud with printers and students typing on university owned computers at least ten years out of date, so Yunho doesn’t feel bad about squawking angrily when Jongho throws a wadded piece of paper at his head. “How can _bones_ be muscular?” 

“I mean just, like—” Yunho gestures vaguely at his own body, distracted with his forty page essay due in less than a week, “—the whole area is generally muscular. You can actually see them when he bends over and his shirt rides up.”

Jongho’s face twists up with a mixture of amusement and pity. “Have you been creeping at your neighbors taking out the trash again?”

Yunho can feel the rush of heat slowly inch its way over the tips of his ears. “I’m allowed to have eyeballs.”

“Yes, but you’re supposed to be using them for good, not evil.” Jongho twists a little in his seat, mouth pursed. “Is he nice, at least? Like, does he throw ragers from dusk to dawn like the lady who lived there before him?”

“He seems to keep to himself.” Yunho frowns, aimlessly tapping against the keyboard. “I wonder if he’s an agoraphobe? It might explain some of the things he does. Like avoiding me when we literally live right across from each other.”

"You sound bitter," Jongho says mildly.

"No." Yunho scrunches his nose. "I sound like someone who enjoys being neighborly."

"I'm sure."

"Jongho," Yunho settles on after a groan, "Just drop it."

“Never.” Jongho straightens then with something earnest in his expression that Yunho has learned the hard way not to trust. “Should we sic Wooyoung on him? He’s amazing at getting people to open up.”

Giving up on trying to make this essay happen, Yunho turns to smack Jongho’s nose with the thick mound of notes he’d brought. “No. Bad Jongho, _bad_.”

Jongho fights him off, and then bullies him out of the library with its stuffy books into the stuffier outside humidity. “Still though. Wooyoung?”

Yunho buys him a disgustingly bitter iced americano from the attached coffee shop because Jongho has never griped about being voluntold he’s going to keep Yunho company while he tries to make words happen. Sometimes for six hours.

Jongho takes an obnoxious slurp of his drink, obviously having spent way too long in San’s presence that his bad habits are starting to spread almost like the venereal version of the flu.

“I can make friends just fine without having to rely on Wooyoung running interference,” Yunho says. “I’ve just got to find a way to get Hongjoong to talk to me without invading his personal bubble.”

“Okay,” Jongho says agreeably, then, “Why are you so hung up on this guy you’ve barely even met? I know everyone in our complex by name but we’re not _friends_ and we aren’t going to be either.”

“You say that as if Mingi doesn't sweettalk the old lady on the first floor into making you guys kimchi every two months,” Yunho points out. “She acts like she’s his _actual_ grandmother.”

Jongho rolls his eyes. “He doesn't count. Mingi can commit murder in broad daylight and get away with it, and _you’re_ avoiding the question.”

He knows, and he’d been hoping Jongho would let him hop skip over the uncomfortable subject for once in his life instead of latching on, refusing to allow Yunho an easy exit.

Kim Hongjoong.

Kim _Hongjoong_.

He’s heard the name somewhere, but neither the student directory nor various Google attempts have resulted in anything worth mentioning. Hongjoong isn’t a student. Yunho doesn’t know what he does for a living, but he’s not listed anywhere as a shadow CEO or business exec laying low to avoid a tax payment or popping up on the SMPD most wanted list. His nameplate in the mailroom is still blank, as is the one attached to the intercom list in the lobby and the wooden sign next to his front door the complex hands out when tenants fork over their first and last. It's a mystery Yunho can't seem to drop, like prodding a canker sore even though his pain receptors are begging him to stop. 

Yunho chews the end of his straw. “He’s just...there’s something about him.”

His friend stops walking, condensation from the americano dripping from his fingertips to the concrete. “Oh,” he says.

“Jongho,” Yunho warns, “ _No_.”

“Oh my _god,_ ” Jongho continues with a terrifying glint in his eyes. “Oh my god, do you have a _crush_ on your new neighbor?”

Yunho debates sprinting away until he disappears into the sea of bodies moving through the quad. 

“I don’t have a _crush_ , I just think I know him from somewhere but I can’t put my finger on it.” He squints painfully at the sun above them to avoid looking at the smirk on Jongho’s face. “I swear I’m not trying to finagle a date out of him.”

“Bet,” Jongho says mildly. “But seriously, you’ve met him a handful of times and haven’t shut up about him in the three hours we’ve been hanging out in the student library. It’s okay to admit you think he’s secret boyfriend material.”

“I don’t think anything about him,” Yunho denies.

“Three hours,” Jongho helpfully reminds him. “You didn’t even type anything on that computer.”

Yunho flushes, because he knows his friend is only pointing out the obvious, and scowls at the sidewalk. “Don’t tell Wooyoung.”

Jongho hums, crunches a mouthful of ice chips loudly between his teeth.

**\--------------**

Which of course means that when Yunho makes it to the first dance class of the week, Wooyoung is already in the center of it warming up, already running full tilt into Yunho’s chest to squeeze him around the neck yelling, “Jongho told me you have a boy!”

“You’re making it sound like I just gave birth.” Yunho ducks out of Wooyoung’s arms and sets his duffel off to the side. “And Jongho is a lying liar who lies.”

“Jongho has never done anything wrong in his life, ever, so try again.” Wooyoung excitedly bounces on the balls of his feet, grinning so hard he looks almost deranged in his enthusiasm. “Boy. Tell me. Now.”

“I’ll tell you when there’s something worth telling. Leave it alone.”

Wooyoung puffs himself up, hands on his hips, and it might have been effective if he weren’t also doing the world’s worst impression of a giggling blowfish. “Yunho.”

There’s a wad of old gym clothes sitting in the bottom of his duffel that he really should have washed at least two months ago. They’re stale with old sweat and new sweat soaking into the fibers, probably yellowing the longer Yunho ignores his laundry responsibilities, and he’s going to dig them out now to shove them into Wooyoung’s fool mouth.

“I told Jongho not to say anything for a _reason_ ,” Yunho groans into his hands instead of using them to choke his friend out. “You’d either come on too strong and spook him or steal him out from under my nose.”

“So there _is_ a boy,” Wooyoung pointedly says, totally ignoring Yunho’s valid concerns. “Is he hot? Do you have his number yet?”

“I don’t _know_ , alright? He’s weird and he’s always wearing winter clothes and he’s only spoken to me twice on the elevator.” Wooyoung’s eyebrows are still raised, patiently waiting. “No, I do not have his number.”

“So what you’re saying is you need an icebreaker.” Wooyoung moves back to continue his stretching in front of the long wall of mirrors. “Have you tried asking him for a cup of sugar? Maybe pretend to make too many cookies and offer to give him the rest?”

Yunho wrinkles up his nose. “That sounds like courtship for grandmothers.”

“It works on pretty boys too,” Wooyoung coos with a flutter of his lashes. “Seriously though, you want my advice to get him to open up? Leave some benign sticky notes on his door and see if he notices. Jongho said he’s a squirrely one so trying to talk to him in the common areas is probably out.”

The first handful of early students begin filtering in through the doorways. Yunho sidles up closer to Wooyoung’s side and knocks their shoulders together. “I can handle it, Wooyoung.”

“Sure.” His friend bumps their hips together with a stifled laugh. “I’m going to demand updates the next time I see you though.”

Yunho does his best not to think about his neighbor through the grueling series of step sequences he’s been trying to teach this round of hopefuls for a week straight. The hard pounding of his feet to the unforgiving floor, the stretch and flex of his muscles screaming for a break, all of it keeps him focused—because if he isn’t focused then he’s thinking of Dokkaebi’s laugh, or how his neighbor’s eyelashes were so long and pretty, how Hongjoong’s upper lip curled shyly as if he was trying to keep his teeth hidden. Maybe he’s embarrassed over them, maybe he has _braces_.

Yunho very nearly trips over his own feet as the image of Hongjoong grinning filters in, only without the mask in the way so Yunho can see the sweet stretch of his bottom lip, his teeth, the hard poke of metal where the braces push against his skin shining through the gap of his mouth.

Wooyoung hands him bottles of water during their first break with a knowing look. 

“Try the sticky notes,” Wooyoung tells him quietly. “The last time you were this spacey you were still working out your crush on Mingi.”

Yunho accepts them with a sigh, condensation dripping from his hands to his pants. “I know, I know.”

**\--------------**

Yunho isn’t sure what’s worse: that he actually puts Wooyoung’s advice to use or that the notes don’t seem to work. The first is a simple _have a good day_ with a smiley face. The second is the same, but this time he adds a piece of heat sealed candy. Both go unanswered but not unignored. He’s not proud to admit it, but the third sticky note—an all caps IT’S THE WEEKEND with a little cosmopolitan sticker he found in a drawer—Yunho gently adheres to Hongjoong’s door and then waits behind his own, looking through the peephole with one eye squinted shut. 

Hongjoong must have heard it happen since he opens up only a minute or so after Yunho left the hallway. Yunho bites the inside of his cheek. He’s maskless. Hongjoong is _maskless_ , though the ever present beanie is still piled high on his head, and San’s earlier assessment that Hongjoong was probably attractive underneath the layers was, apparently, dead on. The realization hits Yunho like a fist to the back of the head.

Hongjoong is—he’s something else entirely. Dark eyed and dark haired, all sharp angles and _pretty_ even dressed down in nondescript grey sweats. Yunho should maybe rethink his stance on trying to be friends because he would not mind getting up close and personal with that pert mouth. He hopes Hongjoong doesn’t hear the grind of his teeth, the scrape of Yunho’s nails against the wood of his door as he works through the sudden _oh no he's hot_ awareness. 

Hongjoong looks both ways down the hallway twice, eyes squinting distrustfully until he finally appears to notice the bright yellow note stuck to his door. Yunho waits with bated breath to see what Hongjoong will do and is summarily crushed when Hongjoong reads it, lips twitching downward, and crumbles the note in his fist. Hongjoong looks up to stare directly at Yunho’s door before shutting himself away again with a soft click of the lock sliding into place.

Yunho deflates. He’s not even sure why he cares so much. Hongjoong clearly wants to be left alone so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s thrown Yunho’s attempts at being friendly away. 

But still, there’s _something_ about him that makes Yunho want to try. 

The thought stays with him through his day. It stays with him through the final crunch of his latest essay. It stays with him while he’s doing chores and preparing dinner, while he unthinkingly plays Red Dead without really paying attention to what he’s doing and loses his favorite horse to the river. 

Sometime around midnight, Yunho finally processes that he’s not processing at all, and decides he needs some fresh air. The convenience store is out on the off chance he’s roped into covering more hours that he’s signed up for, so he trades a late night walk to buy empty carbs for a short flight of stairs to the roof. It’s quiet up here even in this part of Seoul, most of the noise catching on the balconies below, the barred fence around the perimeter acting as a buffer.

No one is technically allowed up here unless there’s some kind of world-ending emergency, but Yunho likes the quiet and solitude and the air on days when the particulate is thin. Even now when it’s sticky wet with humidity from an afternoon rain shower, it’s nice. A good place to let his brain wander and reset.

Yunho sits on the very edge so his feet can dangle through the gaps in the bars.

“That’s a good way to lose your shoes,” someone tells him.

He jolts, having not heard anyone come up the stairs or open the door, and leans back to see Kim Hongjoong standing only a few feet away with his arms crossed, beanie pressed down flat instead of the usual mile-high dome Yunho is used to seeing. 

Yunho blinks. He says, “Huh?” because he’s also a moron.

Hongjoong’s lips thin. “Your shoes,” he repeats, “that’s a good way to lose them to the ground. It’s bad luck to tempt fate like that.”

“I’ve done it before a thousand times, it’s fine.” Yunho pulls his feet back through though, so he can stand and wipe the grit of loose concrete from his butt. “Um. Fancy seeing you here?”

His neighbor inclines his head, body rigid like he can't decide if he wants to be here or not. "Very."

Yunho winces. “Sorry, if you need the roof to yourself, I can go—”

“No!” Hongjoong says, a little frantic judging by the way he unclenches and takes a hesitant step forward. “No, it’s fine, I was just—" He deflates with a grimace. “Sorry, I’m not very good at making small talk.”

“It’s fine,” Yunho reassures him. He’ll take whatever he can get at this point. “What, uh, what are you doing up here so late? Can’t sleep?”

“Could say the same to you,” Hongjoong accuses, and then his face screws up. It makes his nose scrunch and his eyes curve. Yunho thinks maybe he’s having an out of body experience being this close to someone so effortlessly good looking even if they have all the conversational skills of a sedimentary rock. “Sorry, that’s not—I meant to say—”

“You apologize a lot for someone that hasn’t done anything wrong." Taking mercy on him, Yunho offers, “You wanna start over?”

“Yes, _please_ ,” Hongjoong breathes. “I actually came up here to get some air, but then I saw you, so.”

He has to roll his lips between his teeth to keep the smile from overtaking his face. Hongjoong's shy awkwardness is so endearing it makes his teeth ache. “Same. About the fresh air part, I mean. Sometimes the apartment can get really stuffy by yourself.”

Trying to talk to Hongjoong is a bit like trying to befriend a feral cat. Every stilted back and forth question ends with Hongjoong toeing his way closer, step by step, until he’s joining Yunho on the edge to dangle his feet over the railing with him.

Hongjoong leans back a little, just enough that he’s balancing his weight with his hands around the sturdy iron bars. “So are you the one leaving the sticky notes on my door?”

If a full body cringe was a person, it would be Yunho in this moment. “Yeah, yeah it’s me.”

Hongjoong doesn’t say anything for an endless tick of seconds. A minute, an hour, a whole ass _year_ to give Yunho enough time to compartmentalize his secret shame. His fingers—gloveless tonight and Yunho has a whole host of emotions attached to their appearance already—flex and grip the metal barricade. “Can I ask why?”

Yunho supposes that’s a fair question. “Why the notes or why is it me?”

Hongjoong considers him. The moonlight reflects oddly over his pupils. “Both.”

 _Because you seem so familiar I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out where I know you from_. Yunho clicks his heels against the brickwork. “I've only really sort of met you twice, but you seem nice and I wanted to try and get to know you. My friend Wooyoung suggested the sticky notes.” He peeks out of the corner of his eye to watch Hongjoong staring down at the ground below. “If they make you uncomfortable, I can stop.”

Hongjoong turns his head away. Hushed, almost so quiet that Yunho misses it, he murmurs, “They're okay.”

It’s an opening Yunho will take and run with. He grins. 

“Okay.”

**\--------------**

The first few days after their rooftop meetup go by in the same fashion as always. Yunho wakes up ahead of the bus schedule, hastily scrawls something cute and supportive across minion stationary his brother had brought back from Universal, and slaps the note to Hongjoong’s door on his way down to yell at San to wake the fuck up in time for class. Hongjoong’s schedule is apparently oddly spaced, they don’t end up on the same elevator again, and Yunho hasn’t seen him glancing down the hallways like a spy in what feels like a year.

He’s a little sad that their hours don’t seem to match up, but Dokkaebi has been streaming more frequently so he supposes the universe has a funny way of balancing things out. Even Hyejeong has been giving him space lately. Maybe Hongjoong’s precipitous arrival in his life brought with it a stroke of good luck; more Dokkaebi, less Hyejeong, and a gorgeous man that might someday speak to him like an old friend.

Yunho mentally tries to reconfigure how Hongjoong would conceivably fit into his life if the sticky note thing actually works and _continues_ to work. Would they hang out? Would Hongjoong visit him at the convenience store like San will? He listens to the drone of his professors’ voices without hearing them. What would Hongjoong look like in the middle of his friend group? Who would more than likely develop a collective crush on him and bully Yunho for not doing anything about his own...whatever the fuck is happening in his brain over a boy he hardly knows, but who seems so irritatingly familiar.

It doesn’t help that Yunho hasn’t exactly figured out what he wants from their interactions anyway. He doesn’t even know what Hongjoong _does_ for a living, the subject having been completely glossed over that night on the rooftop, and for all he knows Hongjoong could be chopping up bodies in that secretive apartment to sell to the highest bidder.

“You look like your brain is about to come leaking out of your ears,” Mingi laughs at him over their shared lunch hour. “Are you okay? Are the dance hours finally getting to you?”

Yunho picks at his plate. “What would you say if I—” He pauses, mouth still open, brain doing that thing where it's trying to reset and failing.

Mingi’s eyebrows rise expectantly. “If you?”

“I’m an _idiot_ ,” Yunho finally settles on after a moment of intense deliberation. “How did we ever become friends?”

“Well, no denying you there.” Mingi’s face does a thing like he’s trying to decide if he should laugh or be concerned. “What’s, uh, what’s going on, buddy? You good?”

Yunho slowly slides forward away from his seat until he can rest the center of his forehead to the side of his tray. “There’s a person that’s confusing me and I can’t figure out if it’s because they’re hot or because they’re interesting. Like a _puzzle,_ you know? ”

“Please don’t try to flirt by calling someone a puzzle.” Beneath the table, Mingi knocks their knees together.

“That’s the thing, I don’t even know if I _want_ to flirt with them.” Yunho thunks his head against the table hoping something will rattle loose. “He said he didn’t mind the sticky notes, but he hasn’t actually spoken to me since he told me they were _fine_ , and now I’m wondering if I just hallucinated the whole thing and—”

“Whoa!” Mingi’s palm wedges between Yunho’s forehead and the table where he’d been unconsciously smacking it with every other word. “Okay, back up, what’s this about? _Who_ is this about?”

Yunho offers only a sad, whining, “There’s a _boy_.”

“Yes, I’d gathered that much.” Mingi wiggles his fingers. “Does the boy have a name?”

“Kim Hongjoong,” Yunho mutters against Mingi’s hand. “He’s...” beautiful, oddly familiar, _awkward_ , Yunho wheezes, “short.”

Mingi snorts good naturedly. “And? Lots of people are short.”

Yunho squeezes his eyes tight because his friend just isn’t getting it, whatever there is to understand. “I think I might know him? I can’t remember from where, but, _Mingi,_ ” he wails, “Mingi, his fingers are cute and his nose is so straight and he’s so—he’s _so—_ ”

“Jesus, do you even have his number?”

Yunho sighs. “I’m working on it. Maybe. Possibly.” He recalls the low murmur of Hongjoong’s bashful _okay_ back on the rooftop and feels his heart squeeze. “He reads the sticky notes I leave on his door, so, you know, eventually.”

He can feel more than hear Mingi sigh gustily through his nose. “Are you working this Saturday?”

“Just the morning shift,” Yunho says, still muffled, refusing to leave the comforting warmth of Mingi’s huge palms. “I’ll be free after one. Why?”

“Because you need an intervention and a _plan_ other than trying to woo this dude with notes on his door. We’ll get everyone together at your place and crowdsource some ideas.” Mingi finally gets fed up with his hiding and tilts Yunho’s chin up. “Seriously, I’ve never seen you this hung up on anyone since you were psyching yourself up to ask to kiss me.” 

Yunho swallows spit the wrong way and chokes out a rasping, “What the fu—”

“My point,” Mingi blithely continues, as if he hasn’t just dropped the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on Yunho’s tender feelings, “is that if you’re already this desperate to talk to some guy you just met, then I think we both know where you stand on the flirting.”

Out of the group he hangs around with, Mingi has been his longest friend, someone he ran into at a dance comp back in high school and again on the first day of orientation where they commiserated over back to school nerves. Yunho crushed on him for a full year, but then Jongho was suddenly in the picture and any disastrous attempts at flirting went ignored—probably for the best. But Jongho brought Wooyoung, who brought with him a neverending curve of people he somehow befriended within five seconds of meeting them and also San.

Mingi has seen him cry. Mingi has seen him throw up after being challenged to drink four tequila shots in a row without a chaser. Mingi has been there for each and every one of Yunho’s stumbling, failing attempts at romance and has never judged him for the waterworks when he gets rejected. 

Yunho mutters, “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

“That’s fine. That’s what friends are for,” Mingi says brightly. He taps two fingers along the edge of Yunho’s tray. “Now eat up, you’re going to need your strength for this weekend.”

**\--------------**

It’s late when Yunho finally gets home. Jimin had been late again for his shift so Yunho ended up working an extra twenty minutes over his already grueling ten hours, so by the time he makes it home he’s tired, aching, so heavy lidded with exhaustion he almost misses the note stuck to his door. 

Almost.

The stationary is a light pastel pink, green and yellow flowers framing the edges with a tiny caricature of a black cat curled up in the bottom right corner. In the center, in Hongjoong’s handwriting, is a simple, _i hope you’re able to get some restful sleep_. With a heart. The heart even has a smiley face in the center. It is the single most hideous thing Yunho has ever seen in his life. Yunho stares at it unseeing for an atrocious length of time, until the last braincell hanging on for dear life manages to fire off a signal and his cheeks heat, his heart starts to race as he finally realizes the notes are fucking _working._

He collects the little note carefully, wondering when Hongjoong slipped across the hall to tape it to his door and if he was blushing with nerves when he did. He’s so shaken by its appearance that, for the first time in over three years, Yunho gets the notification for Dokkaebi’s latest stream and doesn’t immediately log in to watch.

Yunho cups one cheek, places the hand still holding the note over the steady thump-thump in his chest and smiles so hard his jaw aches.

_Progress._

**\--------------**

Yunho lives in a perpetual state of bliss for the remainder of the week because Hongjoong continues to return Yunho’s morning note with one of his own sometime between Yunho’s morning class and his evening job at the convenience store. Friday night they actually run into each other going up to their floor, and Yunho is so beside himself giddy that Hongjoong sees him and lights up like Christmas has come early that he almost misses the armload of electronics his neighbor is struggling to hold.

“Need an extra pair of hands?” Deja-vu again, but this time Hongjoong grins at him and motions for Yunho to take the box at the top of the stack.

“Thanks,” he says gratefully, voice thick with relief. “I was beginning to wonder how I was going to press the elevator buttons.”

“No problem, I’m a good button presser,” Yunho says, because he is, again, a bumbling fool. He coughs. “Um, what’s all this for, if you don’t mind me asking?”

His neighbor fidgets, toes at the hard linoleum while they wait for the elevator up to their floor. “It’s...related to my job.”

Yunho considers the boxes he’s carrying; one for a microphone and the other for a stand. “Do you do a podcast?”

He watches his neighbor curl into himself a little, boxes lifting in his arms to hide the bottom half of his face. “Not...quite. It’s uh, it’s kind of a niche profession and no one actually sees my face or anything.”

“Is it something for OnlyFans?” Yunho tries to tease, but it comes out huskier than he meant and Hongjoong gives him a look so sharp he feels cut through with it. “Maybe not.”

The elevator is thankfully empty when it finally arrives. Hongjoong elbows the button for their floor and clears his throat. “It’s not a podcast or porn or anything lewd, I guess, but it is weird.”

“You’re starting to scare me a little bit,” Yunho says. “How weird are we talking?”

“Not too bad I don’t think.” Hongjoong leans against the railing, still avoiding eye contact but less flushed about it now. “Have you ever heard of virtual youtubers?”

The itch is back. That niggling little _hey_ _you know this guy_ comes back with such force Yunho feels dizzy with it. He manages a thick, “Y-yeah?”

Hongjoong nods to himself, clearly missing Yunho’s apparent meltdown. “I do that fulltime. It’s pretty fun as long as the fans aren’t trying to be — invasive.”

“Is that so,” Yunho says, and he can see himself reflected on the walls of the elevator, how his face is pink, how his eyes are wide enough they may as well roll right out of his head. “What’s your name? Your VTuber name, I mean, maybe I’ve seen you.”

His neighbor smiles at him, all teeth this time. “My username is KimEights, but my VTuber persona goes by Kim Dokkaebi. Have you seen him?”

**\--------------**

“I’m going to die,” Yunho tells the room at large, head in Mingi’s lap and feet across Jongho’s thighs. “I’m actually going to run away to the mountains to live as a hermit where no one can ever see or speak to me ever again.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Jongho scoffs. “I’m sure whatever it is you said to him wasn’t _that_ bad.”

No, Yunho bemoans to himself, it really was. He can barely think about the rest of the elevator ride up to their floor yesterday without wanting to cry. Kim Hongjoong—Kim goddamn fucking Dokkaebi—is the catboy VTuber Yunho has been desperately lusting over since he moved here. He’s the catboy of Yunho’s dreams, and the worst part is that he said that to Hongjoong _. To his face_.

“Oh,” his neighbor had said, shocked, “So you’re a subscriber?”

Yunho fumbled with the boxes in his hands, quaking with nerves, and nodded so hard the hood of his jacket had actually flipped back to cover his head. “F-for a few years now. I, um, the—the new dress is very—just oh my _god_ , I can’t believe I’m meeting you. I can’t believe we’re neighbors!”

 _I can’t believe I didn’t immediately recognize your voice_ , he remembers thinking. 

Hongjoong’s mouth had smiled, but it was a rictus grin that clearly wasn’t excited by the prospect of a fanboy living next door. “I see.”

Yunho covers his face now and screams into his palms. He can't even tell his friends why it is he's so upset, because then he'd have to admit his catboy obsession and that was a whole other set of problems he was not at all equipped to handle tonight.

He hears San shuffling near the doorway, Wooyoung adding in mindless chatter about nothing and everything.

“Are these the notes he’s been sending you?” San asks.

“Yeah,” Yunho squeezes through his hands, then, “Don’t lose any or I might be forced to hurt you.”

He only knows San is rolling his eyes because it’s San’s default expression. “Please. If anyone is going to lose them, it’s _you_. One was already on the floor.”

Yunho peeks between his fingers. “Is it dirty?”

“Bro,” San deadpans and doesn’t elaborate. Fair.

“Get you one of those receipt stacking things that looks like a weapon.” Mingi mimes stabbing the air. “You can keep the notes all in one place _and_ have a cool thief deterrent right there by the door.”

Yunho turns himself into Mingi’s stomach so he can hide his face. “But if I do that then the sticky notes will get holes in them.”

The low buzz of background conversation quiets, just a little. He can feel Mingi suppress a laugh. “Okay?”

Yunho presses his nose harder against his best friend’s belly to stay hidden. “He draws little pictures sometimes, I don’t want to ruin them.”

The room goes suddenly, pin drop quiet, before Jongho and San make twin sounds of disgust and Wooyoung adds a faint, “Sick, I think I might actually throw up.”

“You guys are assholes, _I_ think it’s sweet,” Mingi says in his defense. “But also, _dude_. There’s whipped and then there’s whatever it is you’re doing. I don’t think it can even be quantified on the simp scale.”

“‘m not a _simp_ ,” Yunho denies, still refusing to lift his head up and make eye contact with anyone in this room. “I just think he’s cool and I want to be his friend.”

“You definitely want to be _something_ to him,” Wooyoung laughs. “Hey, come on, how about we watch a movie and then after we can come up with some kind of apology letter you can slide under his door in the morning.”

Even Jongho takes pity on him by massaging Yunho’s calves. “We promise not to make fun of you for a least two days.”

“Thanks,” Yunho says sarcastically, “Just, really, thank you.”

**\--------------**

The note he slips under Hongjoong’s door in the afternoon is as apologetic as it is complimentary. He tries to explain, in earnest, how much Hongjoong’s streams meant to him so the unexpected meeting made him come on a little (a lot) strong, but he swears he’s not going to cause Hongjoong any trouble or reveal information about where he lives; explains how he really does want to be friends because he thinks Hongjoong was cool even before he knew about the VTuber thing.

He does end it with a sad, “If you don’t want to talk to me after this, I understand completely. Sorry for the trouble”, an equally pathetic frowny sticker, and an offer to buy him dinner as compensation for—everything, really.

Nearly six hours later, just as Yunho is telling himself it’s okay that he scared off a new friend _and_ his favorite content creator, there’s a knock on the door. Yunho swallows, though his mouth is dry, feeling his throat click together, and opens to find Kim Hongjoong on the other side in normal clothing frowning a little at Yunho’s face. His beanie is replaced with a wide brimmed hat.

“You’re weird,” Hongjoong says plainly. “Come get dinner with me.”

 _I have the world’s most ridiculous crush on your fuzzy-eared animated avatar and I think it is transferring to you_ , Yunho keeps tucked up in his chest. What comes out of his mouth is a garbled and supremely unimpressive, “Lead the way.”

Hongjoong leads them to a hole in the wall burger place only two streets away from the complex where he forces Yunho to pay for their drinks, and then marches them back so they can bring it all to the roof. A bit windy tonight, though not so hard it’s going to send their food toppling over the side.

“Neutral ground,” Hongjoong declares. “Also, I figured this would be the best place to meet up in case you get fanboy level loud.”

“I do know how to practice restraint,” Yunho mutters around his first mouthful, but the flush is already settling on his cheeks working towards his neck. Hongjoong only quirks one eyebrow and smirks. “Shut up, I’m just— _shut up_.”

Yunho asks what he thinks are relevant questions without getting too personal. What it’s like, how long does it take to set up, how did Hongjoong start.

“It was honestly just a chance thing I managed to stumble into when I was looking for a distraction.” Hongjoong thoughtfully chews a fry, the brim of his hat wavering on his head though he doesn’t seem to notice. “I was in the right place at the right time I suppose.”

“Lucky,” Yunho agrees. “What did you need to distract yourself from?”

Hongjoong only offers a small, sad grin. “Doesn’t matter very much anymore, don’t worry about it.” 

The wind picks up, one huge swirling gust that unfortunately _does_ blow their empty wrappers to the sidewalk below and dumps their cups of ice across the roof. It also lifts and takes Hongjoong’s hat, forces the wide brim up and over so that it resembles a miniature UFO floating awkwardly away to the side of the building next to them.

Hongjoong yelps, high pitched, and covers his head with both arms, eyes huge.

It’s too late though, because Yunho has already _seen—_

“Oh,” Yunho says a little hysterically, which he thinks is fair at this point. “Oh my god, you’re—”

Hongjoong cringes in on himself, ears laid flat against his head. His fucking _ears!_ “Don’t say it.”

Barely breathing, Yunho shakily points a wavering finger at Hongjoong’s head then at his waist where a thick cord unravels and swings free — Hongjoong’s _tail_ , he belatedly realizes. His head feels hot, like maybe he’s going to faint. Maybe this is just a really intense fever dream and he’s on the verge of waking up, the numb tingle in his fingers clearly an indication his body is starting the process of kicking him back out of dreamland. This isn't real. This isn't _real_. 

Hongjoong gives him a sulky pursed mouth glare while Yunho has an inward battle with himself that manifests as an outward wheeze of shock. 

“Yunho,” he warns.

Ignoring him, Yunho shrieks, “Holy shit, you’re a _cat_!”


	2. Chapter 2

“Am I dreaming?” Yunho asks, because at this point he’s not sure. He can’t imagine this being real, that Hongjoong is real, that the ears and the tail and the menacing, frightened glare his new friend is shooting from across the roof is anything but an elaborate hallucination. “Are _you_ dreaming? Are we actually in Inception?”

Hongjoong is closed-lipped, still hiding his head with his arms, but his tail is whipping around behind him in agitation. His _fucking tail_. “You are taking this remarkably poorly,” he says reproachfully. 

“I’m not going to take that from a guy in hyper realistic cosplay,” Yunho accuses. He drops back on his haunches, arms draped over his knees so he can stop looking at Hongjoong long enough to catch his breath. “Is it cosplay? It is, right?”

“Sure.” He can hear Hongjoong shift from foot to foot even beneath the sound of the wind gusting again. “Yunho, please just look at me.”

“I can’t, I literally _cannot_ ,” Yunho whines plaintively against his kneecaps. His heart feels like a jackhammer, slamming so hard against his ribs he’s a little worried he’s going to end up bruised and unable to breathe. “I said you were the catboy of my dreams like two days ago and now _this —_ ”

Hongjoong muffles strained laughter. “Yeah that was...something. Definitely a first for me.”

“For _you! You’re_ not the one who —” Yunho lifts his head, sees Hongjoong’s chin tilted inward as if he’s trying to hide behind an invisible defensive bulwark, the angry lash of his tail, the terrifying glint of yellow behind Hongjoong’s pupils and wheezes again. “Holy fuck, you’re actually a cat. Like _actually_ a cat.”

“Part cat,” Hongjoong mutters, crossing his arms so his shoulders can hunch up. “I’m still human.” He hesitates while Yunho gapes. “Mostly.”

“Mostly. Right.”

Yunho isn’t sure what the protocol for this kind of situation is other than to scream, start running away, or to call up government agencies to see if one of their experiments had gotten loose from the lab. Hongjoong doesn’t seem like an abomination of science and nature, but he’s — he’s still a straight up catboy, in real living color, standing there like something right out of a fantasy novel. Yunho's fantasy, specifically, tailor made to affect his blood pressure by sending it sky-rocketing out of terror.

“Yunho,” Hongjoong stresses again. “Yunho, I really need you to be calm so I can explain myself. Can you do that?”

Yunho falls to his ass. “I — think so?”

He sees Hongjoong chew on his bottom lip, and it seems like the longer he focuses on that one point of contact the more Hongjoong’s teeth appear to lengthen like fangs meant for a predator. His neighbor’s eyes are so wide and frightened, hurt bleeding around the edges as he takes a hesitant step forward, and another, until he’s barely a half step away and Yunho can see his legs quaking.

Hongjoong clears his throat. “That’s not very reassuring,” he says.

“I can’t feel my legs,” Yunho blurts instead of trying to soothe Hongjoong’s nerves. “Are the — are the ears _actually_ real? The tail?”

His ears flatten again from where’d they’d been tentatively pointing forward, and Hongjoong flinches, tail ramrod straight for one heart stopping second before it drags itself down to one dejected line against Hongjoong’s inner thighs.

“They’re real,” Hongjoong whispers, “They’re real and I’m real, I’m not a hallucination. I don’t have a ton of money, but I will pay you to keep this quiet, alright? No one can know about me.” Yunho’s whole chest caves in on itself as Hongjoong’s breath hitches, chin crumpling and shoulders heaving upwards and he tries to suppress a round of tears. “I know this is crazy fucked up, but please, _please_ don’t say anything about this to anyone. I’ve still got two months on this lease before I could even think of breaking it, I can’t —”

As if hearing himself from a long tunnel, Yunho says, “Hey,” and, “Fuck, don’t _cry_ ,” as his body completely and utterly betrays him by standing, finally, and dragging Hongjoong into his chest, rests a palm against the back of Hongjoong’s head with a familiarity that would make him blush down to his toes on a good day. He feels his neighbor shaking, feels the barely there scrape of his nails through the material of his hoodie and wonders how much force it would take for Hongjoong to hurt him. He doesn’t know what to do with his other hand, awkwardly hovering at Hongjoong’s back with nowhere to go since he doesn’t want to make Hongjoong feel cornered and trapped. 

Hongjoong’s ears tickle his chin.

Yunho inhales quick through his nose to gain some semblance of calm. “I still consider you my friend and I hope you would trust me not to go blabbing your secrets all over town. Especially _this_.” He gives the back of Hongjoong’s head a single tap with his forefinger, avoiding the ears. “Who’d believe me anyway?”

Hongjoong laughs. “You’d be surprised.”

 _I’m surprised now_.

From this vantage point Yunho can look down and see Hongjoong’s tail swaying, not like before where it was fast and agitated, but with a slow graceful swinging arc. “Am I allowed — can I ask how?”

The material of his hoodie creaks beneath Hongjoong’s palms. “You can, and I’ll be more than willing to tell you what I know, just not out here.”

With no other options available, Yunho offers up his hoodie for the trek downstairs to cover Hongjoong’s head which he accepts while avoiding eye contact. Apparent catboy thing aside, Yunho is still working through the confusing jumble of his feelings — admiration, obsession, a half-step away from full blown attraction — so seeing Hongjoong swallowed up by his clothing sends him reeling. The sleeves are so long they cover his hands so only the very tips of his fingers and the sharp length of his nails are visible.

Hongjoong flicks the light once they’re back downstairs.

“Sorry, it doesn’t look like much right now so soon after the move,” Hongjoong apologizes. “There’s been no time to unpack with my schedule.”

His apartment is a mirror image of Yunho’s own, much like San’s on the floors below, though covered in tons more intimidating sound equipment. Black foam panels line the walls of the main living area slash open air bedroom. A ring light stands unplugged in a corner with four softboxes stacked beside it, wires criss-crossed across the faux wood flooring taped down to avoid trip hazards. There’s a setup of three screens on a low desk and a large black mat spread out underneath half hidden by a privacy screen, headphones and more wiring and something that resembles a body suit thrown casually over the edge. 

Ordinarily he’d be over the moon to be so close to where the magic of technology combined to produce his favorite content of the last few years, but Yunho is still reeling from the roof. It doesn’t help that he can see the twitch and flick of Hongjoong’s ears beneath the fabric of his hoodie. 

The walls are barren except for the sound dampening panels, barely any furniture aside from the desk and a loveseat overrun with clothes carelessly flung across the cushions. Clearly Hongjoong was not expecting anyone other than himself to see or be here. Yunho wonders if anyone has ever invaded Hongjoong’s space like this and if they were allowed to stay.

Somehow he doesn’t think so.

“So,” Yunho starts, standing in the middle of the room while fear sweat works its way down his neck. “So. Really, really not cosplay.”

Hongjoong eyes him warily. “If I had the money to afford cosplay gear this realistic, I wouldn’t be living in this complex.” His eyebrows furrow. “No offense.”

“None taken. I’m only here because my scholarship pays for it.” Yunho tracks the tail that unfurls from around Hongjoong’s waist again. It doesn’t move so much now, only lays limp in the space between Hongjoong’s knees and barely twitching at the tip. Ripping off the proverbial bandaid, he finally finds the courage to ask, “I really don’t know how to say this in a nice way, but are you a science experiment reject? Gene splicing gone wrong? What the fuck, dude.”

Hongjoong sighs world weary and heavy through his nose. “No science involved that I know of.” 

He finally removes the hood from his head, ears pointing forward to face Yunho and here, with better lighting, Yunho can see the dark tufts of his black hair morphing into smooth layers of black fur just barely concealing the fleshy pink inners. 

“My family is cursed,” Hongjoong says with a forlorn droop to his shoulders. Even his tail looks dejected. “Supposedly one of my very distant ancestors royally pissed off a vengeful spirit, so now I get the fun experience of turning into a — well.” He motions at his head. “You know.”

With nowhere to really sit, Yunho leans his weight against the nearest wall. “That sounds —” _Fake. Insane. Unbelievable._ “— fantastic in the literal sense of the word.”

Hongjoong scowls so hard his face twists in on itself. “You asked.”

“Yeah, but still, a family curse? That’s what you’re going with?” Yunho clutches his head. The more Hongjoong talks, the more he's fairly sure this is just an elaborate, hyper-realistic hoax. “If you wanted to scare me off, there are easier ways to do it. Like threatening me with a knife or something. A taser. _Anything else_.”

The glare he’s gifted with is flinty with anger, Hongjoong’s pupils narrowing into feline slits. “I’m telling you the _truth_.”

“Yeah, well, it sure doesn’t feel like it,” Yunho accuses, grappling with doubt. “This feels like a really mean joke because I said that shit about you being the catboy of my dreams and _today_ you just so happen to show up with ears and a tail? That’s bullshit and you know it.” Yunho defiantly meets Hongjoong’s angry gaze. “Cruel, too.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Hongjoong mutters and then he’s striding the distance between them in three simple steps, yanking Yunho’s hands aggressively, and plopping them unceremoniously into his hair. “Just — goddammit, Yunho, I’m _not_ bullshitting you here.”

Yunho says, “Ah,” with a mouth that he can’t feel. 

“I’m really tired of you talking yourself into circles,” Hongjoong adds. He's so close his breath fans across Yunho’s chin and his throat, body heat radiating through the thin layer of his shirt. “You either believe me or you don’t, pick one already.”

The first thing he notices is the odd softness of Hongjoong’s ears beneath his fingers. He expected them to be coarser, somehow, with a thin layer of faux fur that made his skin itch. He expected a hard line on Hongjoong’s scalp from either a headband or a collection of hairpins keeping the ears attached. All he feels is warmth and smooth fur and Hongjoong’s black hair sliding between his fingers. 

“Oh,” he says again, “um.”

The second thing, and admittedly the most important, he spies a sheen of pink slowly blooming on Hongjoong’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose. “Believe me now? Can we move on?”

Yunho swallows. Hongjoong's ears are trying to lay flat again but get caught up in Yunho’s cupped palms. “That depends.”

Hongjoong’s pupils are slowly widening back to a normal size, less slitted. “On what?”

When Yunho had first started watching Dokkeabi, he would sometimes dream about running his hands over the cute black triangles of his ears and along the adorable curve of his tail. It would seem a shame to pass up the opportunity now that it’s right here staring him in the face — literally though with less cel shading. Even just this little bit of contact has his heart racing.

“Can I pet you?”

Hongjoong recoils with a low hiss, backing away from Yunho’s reach. “No! Why the fuck would you ask that?”

“You were the one who put my hands on your head,” Yunho pouts. 

“To prove a point,” Hongjoong stresses, beet red and covering the top of his head with Yunho’s hoodie again. “What would you do if I suddenly said I wanted to pet _you_?”

“Okay,” Yunho agrees easily. “Any time.”

Hongjoong stares at him balefully as if trying to work out how exactly their conversation had spun out so spectacularly. “You’re _weird_.”

“And _you’re_ a cat,” Yunho cheerfully replies. “Glass houses and stones, yadda yadda.”

He’s less terrified now than he was on the roof. Hongjoong is still _himself_ , even if he has some...extra features that normal people wouldn’t dream of possessing. He’s still awkwardly direct. He’s still _shy_ and skittish, which Yunho decides makes sense considering the cat thing, maybe it’s some defensive animal instinct making him act so squirrelly.

Hongjoong’s shoulders relax slightly. “So, you believe me now? Finally?”

He looks so small standing in the middle of a sea of wiring and cardboard, swimming in Yunho’s hoodie. His tail curls protectively around one thigh.

“Yeah,” Yunho says. He takes a step in Hongjoong’s direction. “Tell me about this curse of yours.”

Hongjoong’s eyebrows furrow distrustfully. 

“Only if you want to share,” he quickly adds. “You don’t have to tell me anything at all. We could go get ice cream or something instead.”

The silence is lighter this time as Hongjoong visibly works through his options. Yunho patiently waits, both hands stuffed into his pockets thumbing over the edge of his house keys to ground himself. This is real. Scrape. This is _real_. The jagged point of the first notch. _Hongjoong_ is real. 

“Do you have a couch?”

Yunho’s fingers falter on the key. “Uh, yeah? Why?”

Hongjoong lifts his chin. “Let’s get ice cream.”

Confusion and disappointment coloring his voice, Yunho says, “Okay.”

“Then we’ll go back to yours so I can explain this sitting down somewhere comfortable.” His nose scrunches. “Unless you just really want to sit on my dirty floor.”

“And the ice cream?”

“Payback,” Hongjoong says deadpan, “for asking to pet me.”

**\--------------**

“So you said it’s a generational thing?” Yunho asks.

Hongjoong scrapes the tiny pink spoon along the edges of his styrofoam cup chasing the last traces of vanilla. “Mhm. Every thirty or forty years someone in my family is born with the curse. We don’t find out until we go through the first new moon of the year when our bodies change, and every new moon afterwards we experience an uncontrollable full body transformation.”

Yunho hums around his own frozen chocolate bar. “Starting with the cat ears.”

“Or a tail, or our eyes change, or our teeth sharpen,” Hongjoong agrees. “That’s been the pattern anyway. My first change happened with my nails.” 

Yunho keeps his mouth shut, waiting.

Hongjoong reaches both hands out now, admiring the rounded edge of his fingertips. “I was left alone to play and accidentally tore up a mound of plush toys before anyone thought to check on me.” He drops the cup and spoon to Yunho’s coffee table and leans back against the couch with a deep breath. “My mother screamed.”

Yunho winces. “Because of all the broken toys?” 

"Because it was too late." Hongjoong closes his eyes and smiles. “Because I was born cursed and there was no easy way to get rid of me.”

Yunho’s breath catches. “Get rid of — ?”

“In the early days, they used to just off whoever showed signs of the curse because they were seen as bad luck to have hanging around.” Hongjoong mimes a finger slash his throat. “You know the saying about being the black sheep in the family? Well we have black cats. Anyone with the curse is usually cast out and treated like a pariah.”

“So your family just...killed them? Just like that?” He holds back the horrified, _are they going to kill you, too?_

Hongjoong peeks an eye open, still grinning. “Well, to be fair, that was only if the cursed member didn’t willingly do it themselves.”

“Even if they’re just little kids?” Yunho boggles at him. “What the fuck?”

“The youngest to get murdered was seventeen,” Hongjoong says casually as if he’s not describing a long and disturbing history of filicide. “Most of the time cursed members are tolerated up until they turn thirty before someone else steps in for them. Can’t risk having more than one curse in the family at a time or else the whole system collapses. Who knows what could happen?" Hongjoong's tail thumps angrily, once, against Yunho's couch cushions. "Things happen ranging from inconvenient to disastrous depending on how long they're left alive. Maybe a fire starts in someone's house. Maybe the brakes in their car stop working. Maybe they lose their keys down a storm drain. Doesn't matter what it is, everything gets blamed on the curse, which, in this case, means _me_.”

The chocolate shell of his ice cream begins to melt. “Dude,” Yunho says feelingly. “ _Dude_.”

Hongjoong laughs, bright and squeaky. “You want to know the best part of this?”

“I’m a little afraid to ask,” Yunho mutters.

“The very first person to be cursed — the originator of my family’s problem — actually lived until the ripe old age of fifty-two.” Hongjoong closes his eyes again, folding his knees up towards his chest and clenching his arms around them. “Guess what happened to him.”

Yunho doesn’t want to, but he tries, “He lived happily ever after?”

Hongjoong snorts, like it’s funny, and then he’s propping his cheek on the bony curvature of his knees and staring up at Yunho with eyes going slitted again. “He turned completely.”

“As in?”

“As in he literally transformed into a cat,” Hongjoong giggles. “A fucking huge fat black cat.”

This thing feels too huge to comprehend. Yunho has to get up and throw out the last of his melted ice cream, washes the smudge of chocolate from his fingers, stares out of his kitchen window at the bright twinkle of lights spread out across the whole of Seoul and leans his weight against the stainless steel edge of his sink. “Is that what’s going to happen to you? Turning into a cat in six years when you hit thirty?”

He watches his neighbor’s face carefully, hoping for a sly smile and a laughing, “Gotcha!”

What he gets instead is a tear slipping over Hongjoong’s cheek and a sad, “It’s already started.”

**\--------------**

Later that night Hongjoong is sacked out on Yunho’s couch, with Yunho’s extra blankets over him and Yunho’s only extra pillow he keeps for San or Mingi making late night visits. He’d gotten so exhausted by the intense sharing that Hongjoong had collapsed into Yunho’s lap, upper body flopped unceremoniously over Yunho’s thighs while he snored. 

Yunho lies awake in the next room, staring blankly at his ceiling while his heart crumbles to dust.

He can’t believe he thought Hongjoong’s curse was _cute_. Yunho muffles a choked, shuddering inhale with his arm across his mouth. He can’t believe the universe would be so cruel, either.

**\--------------**

Hongjoong wakes him up the next morning still wearing Yunho’s hoodie, hair mussed to one side and sleep clinging to his lashes. “Hey, I’m going to head back across the hall but I didn’t want to leave your door unlocked without you knowing.”

Yunho yawns around a slurred, “Alright.”

Hongjoong hovers awkwardly to the edge of his bed. Yunho wonders how hard it would be to finagle a cuddle or two out of him. He’s so emotionally wrung dry from his silent crying jag, Yunho could really use a hug right about now and San is two floors down presumably still dead to the world.

Hongjoong doesn’t actually touch him, but he does tug on Yunho’s comforter to grab his attention. “Your alarm went off five minutes ago.”

Yunho groans. “Of course it did.” He catches Hongjoong’s arm and wiggles it with a fistful of his hoodie sleeve. “You look good in this.”

“I look like a toddler trying to wear his dad’s clothing,” Hongjoong says sharply. Yunho waits out the embarrassed flinch of Hongjoong’s shoulders. “Sorry. I meant to say thank you.”

“Getting better with the knee jerk insults,” Yunho muses. “Progress.”

He doesn’t actually want to let go of Hongjoong’s sleeve. By the way his neighbor isn’t yanking himself out of Yunho’s grasp and speeding out of the apartment, it seems like he doesn’t necessarily want to leave so soon either. 

Deciding to throw caution to the wind, Yunho flips a tiny corner of his comforter down and offers, “Five minute bro cuddle?”

Hongjoong’s face flashes red, his ears jerk upright so fast it looks like it hurts. He keeps his mouth shut, though he cautiously climbs beneath the blankets and hides his face against Yunho’s chest, so. Yunho tucks the covers securely around them, basking in the feeling of Hongjoong’s warmth down his front.

“Five minutes,” Hongjoong sighs, thick, mouth pressed just to the side of Yunho’s shirt collar. His ears tickle along Yunho’s nose. His breath is early morning rough, but Yunho supposes his is no better and doesn’t make mention of it. “We shouldn’t sleep in so late your schedule gets messed up.”

“Five minutes,” Yunho agrees with a deep yawn. He can feel the wiry cord of Hongjoong's tail lazily drape over his hip, a warm line curling along his upper thigh. He hooks a foot around Hongjoong's ankle and drops almost instantly into dreamless sleep.

They wake up hours later, early morning bleeding into late afternoon. Hongjoong must have found some sort of control over his transformation while they slept because his cat ears are nowhere to be found when he wakes up, bleary-eyed and wet mouthed from drool, replaced by a pair of normal _human_ ears. The tail is still present though and has to be wrangled beneath the hoodie like a belt before he can leave. Yunho sees him to the front door, watches Hongjoong get himself securely across the hall to his own apartment with a grin and a small wave. 

As soon as his door shuts, Yunho’s legs give out. His door creaks as he supports his weight on the handle with one hand, the other clutching at his chest over the staccato rhythm of his heartbeat.

“Snap out of it,” Yunho whispers harshly to himself. “He’s your _friend._ ”

**\--------------**

Committing to being Kim Hongjoong’s friend is made infinitely more difficult now that he knows such a deeply personal secret and then been privy to the way Hongjoong looks when he first wakes up — the squinting slack faced glory of him. Yunho spends the first half of his warm-up period letting his body go through all the motions he can do in his sleep while daydreaming about Hongjoong’s predicament. A familial curse that dates back to the bronze age.

“Not that far back,” Hongjoong had grumped after the worst of the waterworks were over. His voice had still been croaky and awful with repressed tears, but at least his mouth was smiling. “It’s been, like, barely more than five hundred years at this point.”

“That doesn’t make it any better,” Yunho pointed out, and then dodged the playful swipe of Hongjoong’s declawed fingers with a snicker. 

One of his stretches has him lying almost face first against the floor, legs spread out on either side while he grabs his toes and allows his muscles to lengthen. Curses were meant to be broken, he thinks, so why it had taken root for so long in Hongjoong’s family without a break was a mystery. His nose barely touches the flooring. Five hundred years of hiding so-called monsters in plain sight, allowing them to live half-lives before demanding their sacrifice and hunting those down that chose not to go willingly. Yunho grits his teeth. Hongjoong doesn’t deserve —

Wooyoung drapes his heavy muscular weight along Yunho’s back and screeches, “Yunho! How’s it going with your boy? Are you friends yet? Please tell me you at least have his number now or I might be forced to disown you.”

“Not if I disown you first,” Yunho grumbles against the filthy floor with a grimace. 

Wooyoung retreats to crouch in front of him, hands cupping his chin to frame his frankly deranged grin. “Told you I was going to demand updates. Collect any cute sticky note drawings lately?”

“A few,” Yunho says, clipped, scraping his face clean with the collar of his shirt. “Why are you so invested in this?”

Wooyoung pouts. “Because the only excitement I have anymore are professors promising to grade on a curve and watching San make a fool of himself in front of Mingi and Jongho. You can at least humor me here.”

“Get your entertainment somewhere else,” Yunho whines, straightening his legs and flopping backward to the floor. “Why don’t you go bother San with your twenty questions?”

“I’ve already grilled him for information today, keep up.” Wooyoung pokes Yunho’s sides. “Seriously, progress? San is going to be here soon and then you’ll have _two_ of us badgering you for info unless you give it up now.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re the devil?” Yunho mashes his foot into Wooyoung’s sternum hoping to topple him to his ass. Wooyoung only shifts lightly on his feet, damn him, a dancer to his core and balanced perfectly on his heels. “ _Ugh_.”

“All the time,” Wooyoung says gleefully. 

“Figures.” Yunho purses his mouth at the ceiling. “Hongjoong is —”

Skittish like a feral animal. He’s consistently mean when he doesn’t catch himself which Yunho knows now is just a defense mechanism, maybe something to keep people from getting too close. Yunho thinks he’s lonely.

“— he’s shy,” he settles on after a moment of deliberation. “But we got dinner and I’ve been to his apartment, so I think we’re on the way to being friends.”

Wooyoung eyes go wide. “Just friends?”

Last night, Hongjoong had hung his head low and confessed he’d never allowed himself to get close to anyone that matters because of the curse. “Who could ever love a beast anyway,” he’d whispered, sad and quiet, before sighing deeply and shutting his eyes, falling into Yunho’s side with a light snore.

“Yeah.” His heart feels like a thousand ton weight in the center of his chest. “Just a friend. He doesn’t want to get into anything with anyone, you know how it is.”

Wooyoung offers a sympathetic, “That’s rough, buddy,” followed by the absolutely unhinged idea, “So, when can we meet him?”

Yunho finally stands, wiping the imaginary dust from his pants, and says haughtily, “Never.”

“What! You have to introduce your friends to your other secret friends,” Wooyoung squawks. “Yunho!”

“Nope.” 

Wooyoung rubs his hands together, mouth poked out and eyes wide and dewy, obviously in a bid to beg entrance into Hongjoong’s personal bubble. There’s a certain immunity that comes with being Wooyoung’s friend of two years so it’s easy enough for him to ignore. 

Yunho pushes at Wooyoung’s chest. “Put that away, it doesn’t work on me. And anyway Hongjoong is still...very shy. I don’t want to scare him off by trying to integrate you fools into life this soon.”

“Fine,” Wooyoung relents, but points a finger dangerously close to Yunho’s nose. “But the instant he says he’s cool with it —”

“Yes, yes,” Yunho rolls his eyes. “Do your damn warm ups before the session starts. I’m not going to feel sorry for you when your legs cramp up.”

**\--------------**

Less than a week after Hongjoong’s big reveal — and another stack of sticky notes Yunho is careful to keep secure in a drawer of his desk away from prying eyes — Yunho gets a knock on the door. San is off pretending he’s not trying to suffocate himself on Mingi and or Jongho’s dick. Wooyoung is spending the day back home terrorizing the locals. Hongjoong is busy pre-recording visuals for a brand deal. None of the usual suspects are in town or immediately available, so Yunho is understandably confused when the knocking continues after a full minute of wondering who it could be.

Standing outside are a pair of guys who could not look more diametrically opposed. One is tall and baby-faced, dressed in a sweater and slacks like some flower boy son of a high power CEO, while the other is a little shorter and dressed so aggressively _dark_ Yunho can only assume he works for someone shady. Possibly the baby-faced man next to him.

“I think you’ve got the wrong apartment,” Yunho nervously tells them. “I haven’t taken out any loans and don’t owe anyone any money. Try next door.”

“Are you Jeong Yunho?” The tall one asks, shoulders all puffed up like he’s gearing up for a fight. It is the least intimidating thing Yunho has seen since his coworker tried to scare off a loiterer eyeballing the candy aisle by rolling his sweater up to his elbows and sort of t-posing directly to the side of them, like a peacock displaying their feathers. 

“Uh —”

“Chill out, we’re friends of Kim Hongjoong,” the punk rock wannabe interrupts. “We’re not here to harass you for money.”

Yunho squints. “And you’re knocking on my door _why_ , exactly?”

“So we can meet the mystery neighbor he’s been gushing about for almost a month. I’m Yeosang.”

Yunho cups a hand over his mouth to hide his smile. “Hongjoong talks about me?”

“And I’m Seonghwa,” the taller guy — Seonghwa, apparently — speaks over him without bothering to answer his question. “Are you busy right now?”

“Not especially.” Yunho props a hip against the edge of his door. “Are you going to explain what this is about other than seeing my face?”

Seonghwa and Yeosang exchange a glance. They seem to have a full conversation using only their eyebrows and the twitching corners of their mouths. Yunho wonders if Hongjoong has taken up with a pair of telepaths. Maybe there’s a whole world of supernaturals he’s going to meet via association with his neighbor. 

“Actually, we wanted to see if you’d be up for getting lunch with us,” Yeosang says, finally turning away from the impressive scowl on Seonghwa’s face. “Just to talk.”

Yunho eyes the pair of them warily. “About what?”

“Hongjoong, obviously,” Seonghwa hisses, “and about your intentions with him.”

Yeosang clears his throat over the sound of Yunho’s sputtering, slapping a hand over Seonghwa’s mouth. “What he means is, we know you know about the — _thing_ and we’d like to make sure you, uh, understand how huge that is.”

“Th-that sounds fair,” Yunho stutters, face still flaming from the way Seonghwa’s _intentions_ sounded a whole lot like _we know you secretly want to fuck_. Which he _doesn’t,_ because he is a good friend and good friends don’t lust after their catboy neighbors. “I’ll call Hongjoong and we can —”

“No, just the three of us,” Seonghwa mumbles from between Yeosang’s fingers. “No cats allowed.”

“Seonghwa,” Yeosang says sharply. 

“Well!” Seonghwa raises his arms in the air with a huff. “It’s the truth!”

“I feel like I’m watching a comedy routine." Yeosang and Seonghwa both frown at that, scooting a half step away from each other so the temptation to out brat the other isn't so overt. Yunho leaves them to stand in the hall briefly to grab his wallet and his keys, shoves his phone into his pocket ignoring the pop-up informing him Dokkaebi is going live in five minutes. Hongjoong is probably getting the velcro on his VR headset situated just right as they stand here. “Okay, you guys talked me into it. Where are we going?”

“Just across the street,” Yeosang informs him. “There’s a burger place we can get some things to go and then take them to the roof so we can talk without being overheard.”

“Also in case you decide to get loud,” Seonghwa agrees.

Yunho locks his door trying not to laugh.

**\--------------**

Seonghwa and Yeosang apparently live in the same building only one floor below. They were the ones who found the ad for a vacancy in the building when Hongjoong had to leave his last place in a hurry with no furniture to his name. Yunho wants to ask, but that seems like a story that should come from Hongjoong himself instead of secondhand. 

Around a mouthful of greasy fries, Yunho asks, “So you guys are the reason Hongjoong even talked to me in the first place?” 

Seonghwa nods, less sulky and angry now that he’s procured a milkshake and what seems like a mountain of empty carbs. “And told him to bring you up here like this. He needs to meet new people.”

“Hongjoong has been a shut-in for as long as we’ve known him,” Yeosang adds. “Which, in all honesty, hasn’t been that long, but we’re the only people he talks to and it’s getting sad.”

Yunho hums. “His curse probably doesn’t make it very easy to get to know people either.”

“That brings us to the topic at hand,” Seonghwa declares over his half-empty milkshake. “How much do you know about his curse?”

“Just the basics, I think.” Yunho picks at a piece of peeling fluorescent paint left there from someone’s art project gone awry. “He told me there’s a time limit before he turns fully into a cat.” Yunho chews his bottom lip. “Does that — he doesn’t mean he turns and then doesn’t turn back, right? Like he’d be a werecat on the new moon and change back to his human self when it’s over?”

Seonghwa and Yeosang exchange another look, sadder this time.

“His situation is —” Yeosang chews on his tongue for a moment, deliberating, giving Yunho a piteous look, “— _c_ _omplicated_. He’s supposed to have a few more years before the change actually happens, but he’s been having a lot of control issues lately.”

“We haven’t seen him without the ears or the tail in six months,” Seonghwa sighs. 

Thinking back to that morning he and Hongjoong shared his bed, Yunho blinks hard. “Uh, his ears were normal when he left after spending the night on my couch. You sure you’re not just catching him at a bad time?”

If the wind hadn’t chosen that moment to spread the crinkling empty wrappers of their food across the roof, the silence would have been deafening. Seonghwa looks shellshocked, Yeosang not much better with his jaw hanging slack.

“You’re going to catch flies like that,” Yunho feels compelled to warn him. They continue to stare at him, kind of terrifying in their intensity now. “Guys?”

“What do you mean his ears were _normal_?” Yeosang asks aggressively. “Like, smaller sized cat ears instead of the big ones?”

“Normal as in human.” 

“And you’re sure you weren’t hallucinating?” Seonghwa asks. His voice is weird now, ranged higher like he’s verging on something like giddiness. “You weren’t still asleep and dreaming about it?”

“Dude, I’m still trying to decide if I’m being _Inceptioned_ right now so it’s anybody’s guess at this point,” Yunho says with a nervous chuckle. “Why? What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that he somehow reverted after being around you for less than 24hours,” Yeosang breathes. “In six months he’s never once been able to get rid of the ears.”

“We’ve been in the room while he tried,” Seongwha agrees. “That’s not an insignificant thing.”

The wind whistles through the spaces between the metal barriers along the perimeter again. Somewhere, far away, the scream of an ambulance siren springs to life accompanied by the panicked sounds of cars honking to get out of its path. Yunho imagines that’s what’s happening in his brain right now — rearranging the gridlocked blockade of his thoughts surrounding Kim Hongjoong to add in this new information that means...what? Hongjoong being around him helps to keep the change at bay?

Yunho swallows rough, throat feeling indescribably huge and tight at the same time. “I don’t think he even noticed.”

“Then it’s a good thing you _did._ ” Seonghwa chews at his nails. His mouth is twitching like he wants to smile and cry at the same time. “Tell us everything about that night.”

“Everything?”

Yeosang’s eyes darken. “ _Everything_.”

**\--------------**

Yunho sees him again in the mailroom three days later and sidles up to Hongjoong’s side with a whispered, “Hey.”

Hongjoong looks back, and up, clearly unimpressed. “You know I heard you the entire time.”

The ears are hidden beneath a yellow beanie today, pulled high over the crown of his head to conceal any would be movement. His sweater is large and oversized though not as swimmingly huge as the hoodie he’d borrowed from Yunho that’s been MIA ever since.

“Worth a try,” Yunho says with a shrug. “By the way, I met your friends on the 7th.”

Hongjoong freezes in place, a large cardboard box in his arms clenched tightly to his chest. “Seonghwa and Yeosang?” Yunho hums and watches in amusement as Hongjoong goes pale, then vibrant red, before settling somewhere between a mixture of the two. “Oh god, I’m so sorry! I told them to leave you alone but they kept asking me about you. What did they want?”

Yunho casually checks his mailbox. Bills, spam adverts, and a handful of coupons for the new Halloween attraction opening early next month. “I think they were trying to intimidate me into keeping your secret safe?”

Hongjoong groans. “I don’t know how many times I can tell them I trust you before it gets through their thick skulls.”

Yunho shuts his mailbox with a click, warmth suffusing through his arms until it tingles in the very tips of his fingers. “You trust me?”

“I—” Hongjoong ducks down to hide his face against the top of the box. “Maybe. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Never,” Yunho laughs. Hongjoong squeals when he reaches out to poke at Hongjoong’s sides and the base of his spine where his tail is coiled up tight. Deciding to be merciful, Yunho turns his attention to the box. “What’s in there? More sound equipment?”

Hongjoong scowls playfully at him before adjusting his grip and hip checking his own mailbox closed. “Actually I’m not sure what’s in this. Management hasn’t told me to approve any merch samples and I haven’t bought anything lately.” Hongjoong’s eyebrows furrow, mouth tugged down at the corners in displeasure the more he looks at the shipping label. “Yunho?”

“What’s up?”

Hongjoong waits for him to press the button for their floor as the elevator doors close. “This might be a strange request, but can you be there when I open this?”

Yunho can see the smothered worry on Hongjoong’s face reflected on the elevator walls. “Yeah, no problem.” He takes in the tense line of Hongjoong’s shoulders and the agitated flex of his fingers along the edges with mounting trepidation. “Is it something bad?”

“I — it shouldn’t be,” Hongjoong says diffidently. The beanie deflates a little as his ears flex downward. “But, still, I’d feel better if you were there. Just in case.”

“Just in case,” Yunho repeats. He has to ball his hands into fists to resist the urge to reach out and tug Hongjoong into his side, to rub soothing and reassuring circles against his back. Whatever it is couldn’t be _that_ bad, but the way Hongjoong’s breathing is kicking up — fast and stuttered — has Yunho’s hair standing on end.

He hopes it really is just a box of merch forgotten and redirected after Hongjoong's move.

**\--------------**

It is, unfortunately, not just a box of forgotten merchandise. 

Hongjoong stands stock still in front of the now open box. His eyes are wide, nails sharpening to points the longer Yunho watches him hyperventilate at the contents. As gently as he can, Yunho pries Hongjoong’s fingers away from the ruined cardboard, takes him by the arm and pulls him away to the other side of the room. 

“Hongjoong,” Yunho says carefully, crouching down so they can be eye to eye even though his neighbor is stuck in the thousand yard stare of intense shock. “Hongjoong, what does all that stuff mean?”

The box had been empty except for a mound of linen talismans stacked neatly in the center. All sides of the interior had been covered in bizarre runic symbols Yunho had only really encountered in video games and horror manga. The lining of the lid had some sort of warning Yunho tried to read before Hongjoong shredded it with his claws but was too late. He could just make out the shape of the word _crow_ before it had disappeared into a foamy mess of corrugated fiber.

Hongjoong blinks slowly. His pupils have gone slitted again, yellow and green inundating the brown of his iris. Even his _teeth_ are elongating into razor-like points. 

Yunho shakes him again, gently. “Hongjoong? Come on man, talk to me.”

“That was —“ His chest expands once, hard, and then Hongjoong is choking out, “That was a courtesy call.”

“A courtesy call from _who_ though,” Yunho wonders.

“My family.” Hongjoong grins, unkind, all of his teeth the vicious points of a predator. “Looks like my time as a free man is running out.”

**\--------------**

“That’s an impressive stack of literature you’ve brought to work,” San tells him from the other side of the counter. “Are you doing a paper on ghosts or something?”

It’s after midnight and, once again, Jimin has seemingly bailed out of his work hours without so much as a text or a phone call. Yunho doesn’t much care at the moment, since the quiet hours in the store gives him time to read through the five books about curses he squirreled away from the library in the hopes one of them will conveniently reveal how to stop Hongjoong from being — from leaving. 

Yunho scrapes his nails through his fringe, frustrated by the lack of pertinent information that could lead him to a solution. “Not a paper but I am researching something for a friend.” 

San slurps his latest slush creation. “Which friend? Jongho?”

“Believe it or not, I have more friends than just your boyfriends and Wooyoung,” Yunho snaps. His sighs heavily at San’s raised and shocked eyebrows, frowning around his straw. “Sorry, I’m just kind of stressed out at the moment.”

There’s a lot of information about vengeful spirits: how not to piss them off, how to avoid confrontation, what to bring with you to a seance to avoid any perceived rudeness. There is a whole host of information about the different folkloric tales surrounding cats and their significance to witches and ghouls, but nothing so far has jumped out as the be all, end all answer to _how to rid yourself of a catboy curse_. It was probably too much to hope for anyway, considering in five hundred years Hongjoong’s family had yet to break the cycle.

Yunho grits his teeth.

Then again, five hundred years of Hongjoong’s family seemed more inclined to sweep the existence of the loathsome curse under the rug. Out of sight, out of mind. 

San raps his knuckles on the open pages to get his attention. “Does this have something to do with you and Hongjoong?” San squints painfully. “Is he making you do his homework as payback for bothering him? I mean, I know you like the guy, but if he’s just using you for—”

“He’s not,” Yunho is quick to interrupt. “Hongjoong is fine. We’re fine. He doesn’t even go to college so there’s no homework for him to foist on me anyway.”

“So what does he do in his apartment all day?” 

Yunho blanks. “Uh _—_ internet. Stuff.”

San’s smirk goes crooked and lascivious. “Internet stuff.”

“Stop right there, it's not what you're thinking.” Yunho casts around for a decent enough explanation without outing Hongjoong’s profession. “It’s like voice acting?”

San brightens. “Like for podcasts?”

“Sure,” Yunho replies easily. All the alerts are still setup on his phone, but for some reason Yunho hasn't been able to bring himself to watch Dokkaebi's streams since becoming close to Hongjoong. It feels invasive now, which is silly, he knows, but the urge to watch Hongjoong's avatar dance around in pretend magical girl outfits is dampened by the knowledge of what's in store for his future. His horrible, unfair, unjust future that Yunho is going to tear his hair out trying to fix.

He turns his attention back to the jumble of words that have stopped making sense three hours ago. “You don’t happen to know anything about curses do you?”

“Other than you being cursed to be perpetually and tragically single? No.” San slurps another mouthful of his drink.

Yunho droops over the counter until his hands can dangle off the farthest ledge. “Thought so.”

San pats his hands cajolingly and offers only a snide, “Someday you’ll get your dick wet. I promise, boo.”

“I fucking hate you,” Yunho says plaitively against the cold formica. “So much.”

He can just picture the smug expression on San’s face when he laughs, “Yeah, but I have two boyfriends while you can’t even get one. The universe has a funny way of evening itself out, huh?”

 _Hilarious_ , Yunho thinks drily. _Truly a comedic genius._

_**\--------------** _

_“Do you like beyblade?” Yunho questions. His hands are too small to really work the rip cord with any real intensity, but his friend is in the same boat so he thinks it’s fine. “We should battle!”_

_His friend and neighbor is tiny in his big yellow hoodie with winter mitts on his hands even though it’s hot outside and Yunho can see him sweating. “I don’t have any toys,” he says pathetically. “Mama says I just break them.”_

_Yunho gapes, uncomprehending. “So? I break lotsa toys and my mom always fixes them for me.”_

_His friend just shakes his head. “Sorry.”_

_“Aw, well, it’s okay!” Yunho spies his plastic shovels and his bucket and, like most six year olds, immediately forgets what they were talking about. “Let’s go build a sandcastle!”_

_His friend grins wide to show off his pointy teeth. “Okay!”_

_**\--------------** _

Yunho awakens to the sound of his phone chiming and Hongjoong’s name lighting up his caller ID at just after six in the morning. It is entirely too early to be human, or to be _polite_ , so he wipes the drool from his chin and rasps, “What” down the line.

“Come get breakfast with me,” Hongjoong demands. “My eyes finally went back to normal and I want to celebrate with a bagel.”

“Go get your bagel by yourself you demon,” Yunho grumbles half-heartedly down the receiver, knowing it carries no weight since the sound of him pulling on yesterday’s jeans is loud enough to carry through, too. Hongjoong only hums, clearly amused. “Shut up. Where are we going?”

“Wherever is open with the shortest line,” Hongjoong says, then, “I’ll meet you in the hall.”

“Of course you will,” Yunho mutters, but it falls to empty dial tone.

Closing in on two months of something approximating close friendship, Hongjoong had haltingly asked to exchange numbers and then had gone fire engine red when Yunho teased him for it. 

“Stop,” Hongjoong had whined then, hands cupped over his twitching ears so Yunho wouldn’t have the nervous, frenetic movement of them added to his teasing ammunition. “You know I’m bad at this human interaction shit.”

“You’re doing great, hyung-nim,” Yunho told him sincerely. He’d tugged Hongjoong in for a hug by the pocket of the hoodie he loaned to Hongjoong that he was fairly certain he’d never get back. Not that he cared overmuch, considering. Hongjoong was deceptively muscular, perhaps as part of the curse, but Yunho’s hoodie hung so huge over his frame it made him look small. Pocket sized. Adorable in ways that reminded Yunho he was still sort of working through the useless crush he’d put on the backburner.

Hongjoong smiles wide when Yunho opens his door still working his left shoe on his foot. “Morning.”

“Mornin’,” Yunho yawns. His mouth tastes like the acidic burn of mouthwash still, too lazy to properly brush his teeth. “You look happy.”

Hongjoong bounces excitedly on his heels. “Because I may or may not have a gift for you.”

“Oh?”

Tucked away in a back pocket, Hongjoong produces a stack of familiar stationery with a flourish. “Voila! The company finalized the design for the limited Halloween run. Like it?”

The sticky notes this time are light orange with a border of shadowy black bats, white stars, and a black cat arched and hissing in the bottom corner with the KimEights logo imprinted along its spine. Yunho loves it instantly, and is very glad he’s not going to have to shell out the ridiculous amount of money it would have taken to get it on launch day. Being Hongjoong’s neighbor came with unexpected perks.

“It’s cute,” Yunho agrees, casual, like he’s not internally screaming at getting his grubby mits on new merch this early. 

“I’m still amazed you didn’t know it was me by the mock-up Chuseok sticky notes I left you at the beginning,” Hongjoong laughs and eagerly grabs Yunho’s elbow to direct him to the elevator. “Some fan you are.”

He’s not sure when it happened, but Hongjoong had gone from standoffish and shy to borderline inappropriately handsy with him in a matter of weeks. When their schedules align, Hongjoong will sometimes come over to watch a movie or share dinner and ends up half in Yunho’s lap, or curled up against his side, or digging his arms around Yunho’s waist and kneading the skin along his hip. Seonghwa and Yeosang had assured him it was normal, that once Hongjoong was comfortable with them he’d started doing the same personal space invasions.

Yunho thumbs over the embossed logo with a flush creeping up his neck. “Look, in my defense, I was too busy trying to get you to talk to me to notice the print matched your hanbok.” 

“You mean you were too busy being a nervous excitable fanboy to put two and two together,” Hongjoong says. “By the way, do you keep the notes I leave on your door?”

 _Yes_. Yunho studiously avoids eye contact. “Nah. I lose them pretty quick.”

His friend pouts, which is downright cruel because he’s wearing a tinted balm that makes his mouth look plush and wet. A muscle beneath Yunho’s eye jumps. The glossy red made Hongjoong’s lips appear ripe for the taking and he’s not convinced it’s not on purpose. 

“Aw, that kinda sucks. I kept _yours_.”

Yunho boggles down at him. “What, really?”

“Of course,” Hongjoong says as they exit the building together. “I like to pick one at random to see if I can decipher your atrocious handwriting. It’s like my morning puzzle.”

“My handwriting isn’t _that_ bad,” Yunho says in his own defense. 

Hongjoong directs a pointedly lidded glance at him and says nothing.

“Not all the time,” Yunho amends.

“I’m going to sit you down and force you to read them out loud one day just to see if you can.” Hongjoong grabs at the material of Yunho’s sweater to tug him down a side street and leaves his hand there for the rest of the walk.

They couldn’t have been gone longer than an hour even when they got sidetracked by a new boutique opening next door to the bakery. When they get back, someone has made a trip to their floor, has left another box to the side of Hongjoong’s door, and smeared something red and viscous around the frame. A black toy cat has been torn apart, the stuffing strewn across the hallway and the head mounted like a trophy on the cardboard.

Hongjoong’s grip tightens to the point of pain on Yunho’s arm, his whole body quaking so hard Yunho can feel the vibrations through that single point of contact. “Oh.”

“Hyung, don’t look!”

Hongjoong doesn’t listen to him. His eyes are huge and wet. His pupils are shifting uncontrollably between the normal human roundness and the angry sharp slits of his feline curse. “What is all that red—”

Yunho covers Hongjoong’s eyes for him, hastily dragging him into his apartment and locking the door. Hongjoong turns to him then, shoving his face hard against Yunho’s chest to muffle the animalistic wounded cries choking out of his throat. 

“Are you sure this is coming from your family,” Yunho painfully asks. He can’t fathom the betrayal he would feel if his parents started sending him death threats in the mail or showed up outside his door rubbing hopefully fake blood everywhere. “Are you sure this isn’t just one of your subscribers turning into a creepy stalker?”

Hongjoong shakes his head, breathing hard and shaky. “There was someone at my last apartment, but — I made sure they wouldn’t be able to find me again after the move. All my mail gets redirected to the office first before it comes to me and the apartment is in Seonghwa’s name.” He hiccups. “Yunho, the cat—”

“It’s just a toy, don’t think about it.” He manages to get Hongjoong to stop quaking long enough to get him to the couch, allowing Hongjoong to crawl into the safety of his lap so he can hide his face in Yunho’s neck. Whatever it takes to get Hongjoong to feel secure enough so they can put their heads together on a solution. “You sure there haven’t been any weird messages in your chats?”

The rough cord of Hongjoong’s tail thumps sadly on Yunho’s thigh. “I don’t know. There’s so many people now and the chat moves so fast I don’t really see much of what they’re saying anymore.”

“Okay.” Yunho gently nudges Hongjoong’s chin. “How about this: you wait here while I go clean all that up, mh? You don’t need to see it again and neither does anyone else.”

Hongjoong creakily nods and digs out his key. He seems reluctant to leave Yunho’s lap, but he slides to the side and grabs one of Yunho’s throw pillows to his chest, careful of his claws extending and retracting in fits and starts. “I think I have enough cleaning supplies under the sink, but if you need anything there’s money by the—”

“I’ll handle it, don’t worry.” Yunho squeezes their hands together around the key. “You just rest. Use my bed if you want.”

Hongjoong’s face screws up again, another round of tears working over the dark line of his lashes and the pale roundness of his cheeks. His tail wraps lightly around Yunho’s wrist. “I’m sorry for causing you so much trouble.”

“Hey, what are friends for?” Yunho smiles awkwardly at Hongjoong’s wilted, messy-faced frown. “Just stay here. I’ll be right back.”

_**\--------------** _

The fake blood, and it _is_ fake going by the lack of smell, is easy enough to clean as are the shredded cotton remains of the cat toy strewn about the entrance. The lock doesn’t appear to be tampered with. The handle is smeared though, like someone finished with the shitty paint job and tried to go in afterwards. 

He doesn’t know what to do with the box.

Yunho glares at it sitting innocuously on Hongjoong’s kitchen counter. It’s smaller than the last one, only about the size of a VHS tape, and plain this time without even a shipping label to go by. It doesn’t rattle when he shakes it and it’s deceptively _light_. Deciding Hongjoong isn’t going to turn him in for mail fraud, Yunho makes the executive decision to open it up himself — this way if anything jumps or spills out it’ll just be another mess for him to clean up instead of leaving it for Hongjoong.

Held shut by a single piece of tape, the box opens easily. Inside is a note folded a few times to fit, and more of the same linen talismans from the first box wrapped around it to keep the paper closed. 

Yunho chews his lip. Would it be an invasion of privacy to read it or would Hongjoong appreciate a neutral third party stepping in to give him the spark notes? It could be anything from a stalker’s manifesto to a worried note from his parents. Five hundred years of unbroken curses though...

He decides to leave all but one of the charms behind and folds the rest away to his pocket to read later. The less Hongjoong has to worry about _right now_ when he’s already so stressed from the approaching new moon, the better. He takes special pleasure in dumping the trash full of cotton and cardboard and paper towels covered in dyed corn syrup into the incinerator and watching it crisp into black ash. 

Yunho finds him asleep in his bed, in a hoodie he’d thrown on top of his laundry basket yesterday after work, scrunched into himself so only one black ear pokes out of the hood and the comforter.

Heart in his throat, Yunho whispers, “You awake?”

“No,” Hongjoong answers, then sniffs wetly, “‘s that stuff gone?”

“Like it was never there in the first place.” Yunho pokes at the ear standing tall. “Move over, I wanna nap before I have to go to work.”

Hongjoong shifts towards the wall, and works his way back to Yunho’s side once he’s comfortable, curved towards him like an open parenthesis. His tail shakes restlessly between them.

“Yunho?”

“Hm?”

Hongjoong reaches out in the darkness beneath the blankets until his fingers encounter Yunho’s palm. “Thank you. Again." **  
**

Yunho reaches back, interlocking their hands at the second knuckle. "Go to sleep."

_**\--------------** _

Yunho knocks on Hongjoong’s door once his shift is over to check on him and is greeted by a series of scraping noises — the steady creak of heavy boxes being pulled across the floor as if Hongjoong had pushed everything in his entryway against the door as a barricade. His neighbor appears after, frazzled with deep circles forming under his lashes.

“Oh, Yunho, it’s you,” Hongjoong says with obvious relief. “How was work?”

“It was fine.” Yunho lifts the sack of snacks and cheap beer he’d grabbed on the way out. “Want to come over and get trashed?”

Hongjoong jerkily nods, almost dislodging his beanie in the process. He manages not to lose it to the floor by slamming both hands on top hard enough to make him wince. “Ye-yeah, that would be nice. I need to get my mind off of—”

He hesitates so Yunho continues over him, “Cool. Mingi left a bunch of his anime the last time he was here so we can marathon some Naruto while we’re at it.”

Naruto fades into One Piece fades into some late night B-movie reruns on a channel neither of them have the sobriety to recall the name of. Hongjoong has imbibed the most, three of the beers and a good two fingers of whiskey from a bottle he snuck from Seonghwa and Yeosang's apartment apparently. Yunho learns a very important lesson: if Hongjoong being comfortable meant more skinship, a _drunk_ Hongjoong takes the friendly touching and turns it up to eleven. Yunho watches a poorly dressed cowboy high kick a man in an equally shameful lizard costume without seeing it, because Hongjoong is in his lap, pawing at his chest, slurring nonsense and putting his mouth on places it doesn't belong.

“My Yuyu,” Hongjoong giggles against Yunho’s throat. “That’s what they call you.”

Yunho tries not to swallow his tongue and fails miserably at appearing calm and collected while his inebriated neighbor paws at his chest. He coughs to clear his throat of the burning embarrassment. “Who’s _they_?”

Surely not Seonghwa or Yeosang.

Hongjoong nuzzles up under his jaw, trailing his nose along the stubble he finds there and humming at the scrape of it. “My fans.” Hongjoong’s tail flicks lazily in the air behind him until one of the couch cushions gets caught on a downswing and flung to the floor. “I’m always telling them stories about you so they came up with a nickname.”

“Yuyu?” Yunho says, garbled, because Hongjoong’s rough tongue is poking out right against the edge of his jaw where it curves to meet his ear. He keeps his hands in the neutral zone of Hongjoong’s knees so he’s not tempted to gently scratch the twitch of Hongjoong’s ears now that he’s allowed to see them. 

“ _My_ Yuyu,” Hongjoong stresses. His tail thrashes so hard it makes a loud thump against the couch. “That part ‘s important.”

Yunho tries to say, “Why?”, but what actually comes out of his mouth is a low shaking groan. Hongjoong giggles, muffled, with his lips wrapped around the lobe of Yunho’s right ear and his rough tongue sliding over the bottom edge. 

“My Yuyu is so sensitive,” Hongjoong murmurs with his lips still touching Yunho’s ear, hands still kneading unthinkingly against his chest. Any minute now Yunho is going to spontaneously combust into a pillar of flame. “Where else are you sensitive?”

“Nowhere!” Yunho yelps. He finally gathers enough willpower to grab Hongjoong’s hands away from his shirt and turns his face away from the hungry journey Hongjoong is making with his mouth along his neck and jawline. “And you’re really drunk so you should probably start going to bed soon.”

Hongjoong’s ears perk up. “With you?”

Yunho gives a strangled,”No! To your own bed in your own apartment!” And watches Hongjoong’s face fall and his ears lie flat.

His neighbor pouts. 

“But I want to sleep with _you_.” Hongjoong’s eyes droop, appearing more slanted and feline in his drowsy state. “You’re the one who invited me over so take some responsibility.”

“I—” Yunho nervously scoots out from beneath Hongjoong’s legs. “You don’t have anything to wear to bed here, for one.”

Hongjoong shrugs one shoulder. “So lend me a shirt. I promise to give it back this time.” He hiccups another stifled giggle. “You’re so big it would probably look like a dress on me.”

Yunho’s mouth goes suddenly, _instantly_ dry imagining Hongjoong in one of his oversized tees; how his tail would make it ride up in the back to show off his underwear; how Hongjoong’s shoulders aren’t nearly as wide as his own so the shirt would gape and fall to the wayside; how adorable a sleepy-eyed Hongjoong would look sprawled out across his bed in the morning while soft morning sunlight drifted through the curtains. 

“What about a toothbrush?” Yunho desperately tries. “I don’t keep extras, so—”

“Yunho.”

His mouth clicks shut.

Hongjoong crawls back to invade his space again, both hands resting on Yunho’s thighs and his back arched so his tail makes a graceful arc above his tailbone. He smells like whiskey and shaving cream and at least twelve different versions of Yunho’s darkest desires come to life. “I can sleep out here on the couch, I just—” His ears flatten again. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Yunho’s heart twinges. “Because of earlier?”

His neighbor nods, swallowing hard to repress what looks like a shiver of revulsion. “I’m scared I’m going to wake up and someone is going to be standing over my bed or waiting on the other side of my door with more of that — that—”

Despite his better judgement, Yunho reaches out and carefully slides his fingers through Hongjoong’s hair right between his ears, making sure not to touch the appendages since he’s not sure if he’s really allowed. Being privy to their existence is one thing, touching them without Hongjoong explicitly putting his hands on them is another matter entirely. 

“You’re welcome to stay, hyung.” Yunho doesn’t say the _always_ sitting front and center in his brain, but maybe he doesn’t have to by the way Hongjoong’s eyes soften and the mounting distress melts away.

Hongjoong sniffs wetly and relaxes under Yunho’s hands. He touches his forehead to the center of Yunho’s chest. 

“Thank you,” he says, and, “I know you’re curious. You can touch them if you really want.”

Yunho freezes for an instant before the greedy part of himself who’s been obsessed with this man for years now kicks in and touches the very tip of a twitching feline ear. Hongjoong settles across his lap again, hooking his arms around Yunho’s shoulders this time to hide his face while Yunho continues to trace the shape of each ear, fascinated.

“They’re a lot softer than I was expecting,” Yunho confesses, finally reaching his other hand around to rub both ears in his hands. “When you put my hands on them on the roof, I remember thinking they’d be a lot more wiry than this.”

Hongjoong buries his face harder against Yunho’s chest. “I use a lot of conditioner.”

Yunho hums. He loses himself a little bit in petting the odd curvature of Hongjoong’s ears where they meet his scalp, then up again to run a finger around the tips, and works his fingers into the tufts of white fur — hair? — around the inner portions. Hongjoong doesn’t say anything, but his ears twitch and jerk every once in a while as if he’s ticklish. Yunho realizes, after god knows how many minutes he’s spent giddily groping Hongjoong’s ears, that his friend is making low reverberating sounds in his throat — not quite audible but not exactly silent either.

He smiles like an idiot, totally charmed. “Are you purring?”

“No!” Hongjoong scrambles away back to the safety of the empty section of couch and holds a pillow over his face. Yunho tries not to pout at the loss of contact. “And don’t tell anyone I was either!”

“What’s there to tell if you weren’t actually purring?” Yunho snickers. “That’s so cute, hyung.”

Hongjoong peeks over the top edge of the pillow. His cheeks are flaming neon red below his furrowed brows. “No, it isn't. It’s weird and creepy and no one would follow my streams anymore if they found out.”

“Says who?”

Hongjoong stubbornly remains silent, hands kneading the foam pillow and avoiding eye contact. 

Yunho wrenches the pillow away and flings it carelessly over his shoulder. “Says who, Hongjoong? Because from where I’m sitting as one of your fans, I can say with a thousand percent certainty your audience would love it.” 

Hongjoong curls his knees up protectively against his chest and tries to hide again. Yunho scowls, not sure if he’s supposed to feel angry. 

“Hyung?”

“My managers,” Hongjoong finally confesses. “They don't know about my curse, but they've told me on more than one occasion that the purring is too weird. The catboy thing is fine up to a point but I’m not supposed to go _full cat_ as they call it. Too much like fetish roleplay.”

“Your managers are morons,” Yunho informs him point blank. He pokes at the tail twisted up protectively around Hongjoong’s feet. “This? This is a part of you and you have every right to embrace it if it makes _you_ happy, fuck anyone else that would tell you you aren’t allowed to be yourself. Your fans love you. I—” _might be in love with you too_. Yunho clenches his teeth as Hongjoong stares up at him teary-eyed, his pink mouth popped slightly open. “No part of you could ever be considered _creepy_. Purr if you want. Make _whatever_ noises you want on stream or otherwise. If anyone gives you shit, then tell them your Yuyu is going to curb stomp their ass to next week.”

Hongjoong offers only an overwhelmed sounding, “Yunho,” before his breath hitches once, hard, and fat tears start rolling over his cheeks. 

“Oh, fuck, shit I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you upset!” Yunho hastily dabs at Hongjoong’s face with the end of his sleeves. “Please stop crying, oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

Hongjoong’s tail wraps around his arm first, then his hands, and his neighbor shakes his head while still sucking in shuddering breaths like a wounded animal. Maybe he is. Maybe Yunho said too much and brought back old trauma.

“You didn’t — didn’t upset me. Not in a bad w-way at least.” Hongjoong rubs his face in his own shirt. When he looks up, his eyes are so huge and wet and so open Yunho feels as if he’s going to fall into them and drown. The rough fuzz of Hongjoong’s tail tightens just the slightest bit around the meatiest part of his arm and slides away to rest back around Hongjoong’s feet. 

“No?” Yunho asks just to be sure. 

“No,” Hongjoong affirms, sniffling wetly again. “I’m just...I’m really glad I met you. Thank you, Yunho.”

He blinks, off-footed and still terrified that his perpetual case of foot in mouth disease has finally gone terminal. “For what? Getting you drunk and making you cry?”

Hongjoong’s ears flatten again, just slightly. Yunho wonders if it’s a conscious effort or an involuntary muscle movement controlled by Hongjoong’s mood. “For being my friend. For being so unabashedly _you_.” 

Heat starts to inundate his own ears. Flustered, Yunho just barely contains his urge to cringe in on himself. “Um —”

“And for allowing me into your home when my own doesn’t...when my own apartment doesn’t seem very welcoming.” Hongjoong gives one final sniff and offers up a wobbly-mouthed grin. “You make me feel safe.”

His eyes are rimmed in red. His cheeks are rosy with heat from the alcohol. Hongjoong’s ears are perked up high to match the smile on his mouth and Yunho is so indescribably attracted to him in that moment he kind of wants to punch himself in the face for only just now realizing the constant reassurance to himself that he wasn't going to allow the attraction to settle in has accomplished fuck all. Yunho gulps deep, the muscles in his arms clenching up to keep from dragging Hongjoong back in for a hug; to kiss the tantalizing frame of his mouth.

“Let me find you a shirt to sleep in,” he says instead of the profoundly inappropriate confession sitting right there in the forefront ready to launch. Too much far too soon, and extremely inappropriate considering the timing — both Hongjoong's crying jag and the looming threat of the curse coming to full fruition.

Hongjoong’s mouth pops open again for a half second in protest, then closes with a clack, deflating back into himself with a curt nod.

_**\--------------** _

“I swear I don’t actually cry this often,” Hongjoong informs him the next day while grumpily dumping an armful of takeout on Yunho’s kitchen table as payment for putting up with him the night before. He’s still wearing the latest hoodie pilfered from Yunho’s closet and Yunho briefly wonders if it’s going to disappear into the no man’s land of Hongjoong’s apartment too. 

Yunho accepts his container of pepper steak with a laugh. “Hyung, I cry literally all the time. You don’t have to feel bad for doing it in front of me.”

“Yes, well,” Hongjoong says, puffing himself up. “Maybe I wanted you to think I was cool instead of a gigantic crybaby.”

“I think you’re both.” Yunho points at him with his chopsticks with one eye squinted shut. "Plus you have extremely valid reasons to be upset. No one would judge you for letting it out, you know, least of all me."

Hongjoong joins him on the couch, casually wedging his feet over Yunho’s crossed legs. “That doesn’t really make me feel better.”

“You know what will make you feel better?” Hongjoong eyes him curiously as Yunho leans over to grab two controllers he keeps on the hidden shelf beneath his coffee table. “Me trashing you at Mario Kart.”

Hongjoong laughs and accepts one of the controllers. “Don’t you have class today?”

“Nah, just a studio session but that’s not until way later.” Yunho waggles his eyebrows. “You wanna?”

Hongjoong’s eyes harden playfully with determination. “You’re on.” 

The distraction of video games lasts all of an hour before Hongjoong droops against Yunho’s side, hands lagging behind on reaction times. Yunho wins the final two races with comparative ease when the first few were more 70/30 in Hongjoong’s favor. He pokes Hongjoong in the side, concerned. 

“You good?”

“Just tired,” Hongjoong slurs. Already his edges are blurry with sleep, eyes going soft and fuzzy and far away the longer Yunho watches him. “New moon is coming up. The lead in always zaps my energy.”

“I can move if you want to nap,” Yunho offers. Hongjoong is understandably still afraid about going back across the hall to his own bed and has opted to post up on Yunho’s couch until management forces him to do a stream. “Or I could bring you a pillow.”

“Thanks.” The controller drops from Hongjoong’s slack fingers. Hongjoong is clearly out of his mind with exhausted delirium and says, quietly, “You take such good care of me. You’re going to make someone very happy one day, Yunho.”

The statement is kind, but Yunho feels as if he’s been punched directly in the heart all the same. He knows — _he knows —_ Hongjoong isn’t going to risk hurting someone’s feelings by getting involved in a relationship with a timer. Unless something miraculous happens with the way the curse works, Hongjoong’s life has a clear and fast approaching end date. Yunho should be grateful he’s allowed to be this close; allowed into Hongjoong’s inner circle of friendship where only two other people had managed to snake their way in. He shouldn’t be developing feelings. He shouldn’t be internally greedy for every ounce of Hongjoong’s attention.

Yunho thinks about reaching out and trailing his fingertips over the contours of Hongjoong’s face until he can recreate it by sense memory alone. 

Instead, he balls his hands into fists and stares blankly at the bright graphic announcing him the 1st Place Winner.

“I’ll try." Yunho grits his teeth to keep from laughing at the pitiful trajectory his life has taken. "You're not making it very easy though."

**\---------------**

His luck apparently runs out not two hours after he leaves Hongjoong to sleep, because the teaching roster for today is just himself and Hyejeong, and while she’s beautiful and nice, she’s also persistent in her pursuit. Yunho can’t remember the last time she’d actually asked him out with any kind of sincerity, more of a running gag than anything else, but today when she says, “Hey, you want to hang out sometime?” Yunho’s mind blanks. Should he?

She blinks guilelessly at him, waiting. They’re both sweaty from the post workout, though Hyejeong seems to practically glisten under the lights. He should say no, like always, and then turn the conversation back toward something easy like step sequences or who in the group needs to focus on what moves, but —

"It doesn't have to be anything serious," Hyejeong offers while bumping their hips together. "Just a casual dinner date. For fun."

"Casual, right," Yunho mumbles. He thinks about Hongjoong back at his place, probably asleep in the middle of his living room floor all spread out and pretty beneath the biggest rays of sunlight filtering in from the balcony window. He thinks about coming home to Hongjoong, who is so emotionally unavailable he may as well be living on Mars. Kim Hongjoong, who is everything Yunho has ever wanted and can't have.

Kim Hongjoong, _cursed_.

"I can do casual."

Hyejeong smiles, all teeth, and grabs Yunho's hands to shake them vigorously up and down. "So it's a deal! I'll text you later and we can figure out the time and place."

Yunho grins back, and hopes it doesn't looks as depressed as he feels. Maybe this will be a good first step in forgetting Hongjoong so it will hurt less later.


	3. Chapter 3

Yunho ignores the twin set of evil eyes glaring at him from the slush machine. The counter is already gleaming, but he swipes the cleaning rag over it again for the tenth time just to give himself something to do besides dodge accusations.

“You guys don’t have to keep me company, you know. I can work by myself just fine.”

“I can’t believe you actually said yes to Hyejeong when you’ve been moaning to me about being uncomfortable about it for months,” San nearly yells, pacified only by Jongho handing him a finished slush with the straw already unwrapped. San continues to offer up a scowl as he slurps obnoxiously around the mouthful.

Jongho holds his phone up, a FaceTime with Mingi already in progress when they’d come in, and sighs. “Who raised him to be this way? Surely it wasn’t us.”

“It wasn’t _any_ of you,” Yunho complains. “You’re all younger than me, you dicks.”

“Are you even attracted to her?” Mingi asks skeptically over the connection. 

“Have you _seen_ Shin Hyejeong?” Yunho says in lieu of an actual real answer. His co-worker slash co-captain is undeniably gorgeous and incredibly sweet — when she’s not on a mean streak because the upstarts from first year classes try to undermine her authority. He could do so much worse, and it’s not like he’s got any game to speak of so, really, he should be happy she’s decided his gross sweaty self she sees three days out of the week is worth trying to date. Casually. 

“Have _you_?” San asks, a tad angrily though he shrinks back when both Jongho and Yunho frown at him. “Sorry, I know she’s pretty or whatever, I just thought you had something cooking with that Hongjoong guy. This seems kinda—”

“Kinda sus,” Jongho finishes for him. Even Mingi nods. “What’s happening there anyway?”

Yunho innocently bats his lashes. “What’s happening where with who?”

Jongho’s eyes go lidded with bored disbelief. “Hyung.”

“Fine, whatever, nothing is happening on that front.” Yunho straightens a cardboard display of gift cards so he doesn’t have to look at their pitying expressions. “Nothing is _going_ to happen either. We’re just friends, end of story.”

San takes another loud pull from his drink. “Why? Is he straight?” 

Yunho continues to fiddle with the odds and ends of advertisements scattered around his work station because he honestly does not know. Hongjoong has never talked about specifics when it came to removing himself from potential romantic entanglements, and Yunho has never asked, though he’s reasonably sure Hongjoong has turned down at least one guy before. Too bad that topic was glossed over because of, quote, bad memories from his last apartment.

“Oh my god, how do you not know after two months of trying to get into his business?” Mingi laughs over the phone. “Dude. _Dude_.”

“Look, it just hasn’t come up,” Yunho says defensively, “do _you_ go up to every new person you meet and ask them about their sexual preferences?”

“Mingi asked San if he liked threesome porn when they met,” Jongho says, casually passing off the phone to San while he finishes capping his own slush. 

“Because Mingi is terrible and has no filter,” Yunho deadpans, ignoring the whining coming from the phone. “Guys, seriously, just leave it alone. The thing with Hongjoong is complicated enough without adding feelings into the mix.”

Jongho purses his mouth around his straw. Yunho chooses not to acknowledge the way San is staring at it like he’s ten seconds away from offering to replace the straw with something else. “How exactly is being friendly neighbors _complicated_?”

He’s saved from trying to answer _that_ without also revealing details about Hongjoong’s situation, when the door chimes and — oh no.

“My Yuyu!” Hongjoong exclaims brightly through his thick oversized mask. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

Despite himself and the peanut gallery boggling at him, he smiles.

Yunho makes it a point to ignore both San and Jongho whispering intensely to each other in the corner unbeknownst to Hongjoong. He clears his throat. “What brings you here? Another super late night snack run? Because I can tell you the kimbap you like is _way_ past the sell by date and will probably give you the runs worse than Niagra Falls.”

Hongjoong places both palms on the counter and leans forward. Yunho can tell he’s grinning by the way his eyes crinkle up, how they sparkle a little from the reflections of the overhead lighting. “Maybe I came by to try my luck at finessing a six pack out of you. Miller Lite if I remember right.”

To his horror, a brainless whoosh of noise falls from his mouth that makes Hongjoong smirk harder if the way his eyes curve mischievously is anything to go by, which, rude. Yunho scrambles for a better response that ends up being, “I’m not giving you free beer just because you happen to be my friend.”

“No?” Hongjoong leans closer, far enough over the little counter space that Yunho can feel the warmth of his breath even through the mask. “What about being your favorite—”

“Neighbor!” Yunho interjects, loudly, since it has become readily apparent Hongjoong hadn’t noticed the other people loitering in the back corner now pointing Jongho’s phone forward so Yunho can see Mingi’s gleeful face shining on the screen. Hongjoong jolts, looking in the same direction and makes a noise so high pitched it would probably shatter glass if it hadn't been muffled by the thick fabric. “My favorite neighbor, yes, and also no. I can give you my employee discount though if you really want it.”

Hongjoong’s eyes are wide, slightly frightened, and he reaches up to grip his beanie with both hands. “Uh — maybe —I’ll raincheck. See you at home later?”

“Of course.” Yunho glances back at his group of friends watching the exchange with obvious delight. He catches Hongjoong by the edge of his sweater when he turns back, whispering low so the sound doesn’t carry. “Hey, did you come by for something in particular? I can grab whatever it is after my shift ends and bring it to you, I wasn’t kidding about the discount.”

Hongjoong only shakes his head, gently extracting his sleeve from Yunho’s grip. “Thank you, but no, I just had the urge to come see you and I knew you were here. Be careful on your way back, Yunho.”

“Yeah,” he says faintly, waving and watching Hongjoong disappear through the glass door. “You too.”

The store goes pin drop silent for a total of fifteen seconds, which Yunho only knows because he counts them out one by one in his head.

San, grinning so hard he looks deranged, wheezes an excited, “ _My Yuyu_?”

There’s an interesting stain on the farthest edge of the counter that Yunho concentrates on while Mingi laughs somewhere offscreen and Jongho tries to keep San from vibrating out of his skin with a hand on his shoulder. 

“So he has a nickname for me, big whoop.” Yunho defiantly lifts his chin, though still keeps eye contact with anything except his friends. “Can we go back to you guys shaming me for going on a date with Hyejeong? I liked that better.”

“No,” Jongho says sweetly. “Tell us more about your neighbor, _Yuyu_.”

“Don’t call me that,” Yunho grumbles, reflexive. Hearing the nickname come from someone who isn't Hongjoong makes him feel weird — makes his skin crawl in a way he doesn't necessarily want to analyze.

“I just want to know when we get to meet him for ourselves,” Mingi whines petulantly. “Quit being stingy and let us hang out together.”

Yunho gives a last ditch, “But, Hyejeong?”

“I’m going to knock on his door tomorrow,” San declares seriously. “Maybe bribe him with brownies or something so we can get some answers.”

His phone rumbles with a notice about Dokkeabi’s latest stream. Yunho puts his face in his hands and groans.

**\--------------**

The stream is well underway by the time Yunho makes it home, which is just as well, because Hongjoong being distracted with work means Yunho can finally open up the note he’d procured without being in danger of his neighbor walking in now that Hongjoong has a copy of the key. 

The letter had been stuffed in a kitchen drawer after he’d gotten back from burning the remnants of stalker-esque shit surrounding Hongjoong’s door so Hongjoong wouldn’t see it when Yunho finally came back. He’s been itching to read the contents, but with Hongjoong spending most of his time in Yunho’s apartment lately…

Fat dollops of red wax seal the linen talismans surrounding the letter. He manages to keep one totally intact to examine later, the rest get unceremoniously ripped and thrown away to reveal creased printer paper. It’s crumpled on several sides like someone else had come through and grabbed it, possibly while they were wrapping the weird linen rags around it that Yunho still can’t decipher.

Unfolded, the letter is barely legible, most of it has been either erased or smudged so horribly by what looks to be fresh ink that the only things to stand out are a scant few lines.

_Kim Hongjoong,_

_We hope this letter finds you ~~well~~._

[a huge scrape of ink smeared across the width of the paper takes up a third of the page]

_We care for you, as we always have, but you must understand there can be only one black cat at any given time. It is only prudent that we ask you to courteously remove yourself._

[another section blackened out, though Yunho can make out the words 'break' and 'curse' as his heart jumps]

_Find your imprint._

_With courtesy,_

[a last dollop of drying ink, likely to cover the sender's name]

Blood rushing in his ears, Yunho’s hands tremble violently until he leans his weight against them on his counter. So Hongjoong _does_ have a way to break the curse. Why has he gone this long without trying? Why hadn’t he found this—this imprint thing? Surely with potential death looming in the not so distant future Hongjoong would be going all out trying to find it instead of sitting in his apartment all day recording voice overs and playing virtual dress-up for views.

Yunho breathes hard through his nose.

Unless he had and it didn't work.

His phone pings. KimEights has ended his stream early citing exhaustion, the little pop-up showing Dokkaebi's cel-shaded face smiling merrily in the corner of the notification. Yunho can just about picture Hongjoong slumping against his keyboard, his lids heavy with sleep, ears and tail lazily drooped on his head and floor respectively. He pictures what it would be like if, one day, Yunho woke up and instead of a neon colored sticky note stuck to his door, he finds Hongjoong's apartment cordoned off by hazmat teams and a solemn-faced coroner shaking his head in the hallway.

Heart in his throat, Yunho flicks over to his messaging app, thumbs over Yeosang's name, and sends off a terse t _ell me what you know about imprints_.

_**\--------------** _

Yunho rolls over to smother himself in his pillow, groggily slapping at his alarm clock shrilling in his ear and ignoring the sharp glare of the sun beaming directly at his eyeballs. 

Yeosang apparently knows fuck all about imprints personally but swears he may know of someone that does — or at least someone who has a better chance at it anyway. Seonghwa sends him unhelpful screenshots from Twilight Saga wiki pages because he’s kind of a dick. Yunho had stayed up late pulling his hair out trying to find any mention of the word in the stack of dusty books he’d checked out and deep-diving google for answers. The internet turned out to be less helpful than the screenshots Seonghwa had sent over considering he spent the same amount of time reading about baby animals as he did trawling through inventive werewolf porn.

There are three texts from San giving him a play by play of the _I’m baking brownies, you have six hours to intercept_ plan. 

On the way out, he almost literally bumps into Hongjoong coming out of his apartment wearing one of the hoodies he'd pilfered from Yunho's clean laundry basket holding one of the garish neon orange Halloween sticky notes close to his chest. Though when he sees Yunho yawning, Hongjoong hastily crumples whatever it is up and flings the wad of paper back into his own apartment and shuts the door.

Still a little disoriented from sleep, Yunho squints at him. “What was that?”

“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” Hongjoong adjusts the beanie on his head and they both pretend not to notice the pretty pink flush working its way over Hongjoong’s cheeks. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Yunho says warily, though as soon as he remembers San’s messages he claps his hands together and adds a pleading, “How do you feel about possibly meeting my friends?”

Hongjoong blinks wide-eyed at him.

“Because San, the guy that helped you shop the first time we saw each other at the convenience store, has already said he’s going to come knock on your door to introduce himself today since I won’t do it for him.”

“Uh—”

Yunho squints painfully at the ceiling. “He said he’s making you brownies. As a bribe.”

“Oh, well in that case,” Hongjoong laughs. “That’s fine. I’ve got pretty good control right now so if he wants to meet then…”

“It’s probably going to be more than just San. He’s got two boyfriends and his best friend all in on it, too.”

Yunho watches Hongjoong shrug one shoulder, totally unconcerned, as if Yunho hasn’t been describing a nightmare scenario of excitable toddlers clustered in one room all vying for Hongjoong’s attention. “As long as there’s food involved.”

Like most days, they end up side by side in the elevator, Hongjoong scooting as close to Yunho’s side as he can to avoid touching the people that load on the sixth floor and depart on the first. Yunho nudges his elbow gently into Hongjoong’s side once they are alone in the entrance. “What about the new moon? Is that going to be a problem?”

Hongjoong scratches at his cheek. Chest clenched up tight, Yunho tells himself to stop focusing on the way his hoodie is too long in the sleeves leaving Hongjoong’s hands almost swallowed up in the fabric, the very tips of his dulled fingernails visible at the opening. 

“Uh, I can feel the change trying to happen this close, but if I spend most of the day with everything out instead of fighting it then I should be able to get it back under tight control for a few hours tonight.” If he wasn’t looking for it, the shift of Hongjoong’s beanie could be easily dismissed as just the backdraft from the main doors opening and shutting rather than his ears doing that adorable flickering twitch Yunho has come to understand means Hongjoong is nervous. “Er — two days from now I won’t be able to do anything with anyone that isn’t you, though.”

Yunho feels his own cheeks heat. “Just me? Not Seonghwa or Yeosang?”

Hongjoong bashfully shakes his head while avoiding eye contact. They trail over to the secluded mail room, Hongjoong glancing around to be sure they’re alone before whispering, “You calm me down in a way they can’t. The change has been much easier to deal with when you’re close.” He winces. “Not that you have to be or anything! There’s no — I don’t want you to feel obligated to hang out if you don’t want! I — _ugh,_ stop _laughing_ at me!”

“I wasn’t laughing at you, I was laughing _with_ you,” Yunho coos, still biting back the shivery laughter vibrating in his chest. 

Hongjoong glares at him, though the effect is ruined by the dark flush encapsulating his entire face. “Too bad I wasn’t laughing in the first place.”

“You would be if you were on my end,” Yunho giggles, catching Hongjoong’s hands when he goes to playfully bat at Yunho’s chest in mock outrage.

When he was young, Yunho had once held a bird in the palm of his hands and felt like a giant. Like he could crush the little thing with no effort because it was so small and vulnerable, too brittle boned to be considered safe in Yunho's awkward fingers. That’s what holding Hongjoong’s wrists feels like now — like Hongjoong is made of some delicate porcelain and any amount of force exerted on him will break him wide open. Yunho swallows tight, throat clicking out of sudden dryness. Pouting, Hongjoong twists in Yunho's grip. He may appear small, but there’s a hidden strength beneath it all that makes Yunho wonder, not for the first time, just how easy it would be for Hongjoong to hurt him.

His neighbor lets out a breathy, “Yunho?” that snaps him back into the present.

Yunho drops Hongjoong’s wrist as if he’s been burned, clearing his throat to cover the intense rolling wave of embarrassment working up from his toes. “So, tonight?”

Hongjoong eyes him for a moment longer before giving a dimmed version of his multi-kilowatt smile. “Tonight sounds fine. Text me the details later.”

_**\---------------**_

“Alright, ground rules,” Yunho addresses the room at large. “Number one—”

“Oh my god, Yunho, we know how to act around new people. Will you chill out?” Mingi throws a single kernel of popcorn at Yunho’s head, smirking when it connects with his temple and Jongho gives him a high five for the shot. “Why are you being so weird about this? He’s your neighbor, not a scared chihuahua.”

Yunho bites the inside of his cheek to keep from blurting _no, but he is a cat._ “I know, but you have to admit you guys can be kind of intense when we all get together like this.”

Jongho stretches his legs across Mingi’s lap. “The only one you need to worry about is Wooyoung and that’s only because he can’t help himself when it comes to meeting attractive people.”

“Hey,” Wooyoung whines from the kitchen where he’s been placed on snack duty. “Just because I like to dole out compliments—”

“And make passes at other people’s boyfriends in front of them,” Jongho says with an accusatory finger pointed in Wooyoung’s direction. “Mingi had barely said hello before you were asking for his number!”

“Jongho,” Mingi starts, buried laughter making his shoulders shake. Jongho only glares at him, hot eyed and red cheeked and a little pouty. 

Wooyoung sighs dramatically. “In my _defense,_ I was sky high at the time and didn’t know you two were attached at the dick, so that doesn't really count. And anyway, who’s to say this Hongjoong guy is going to be my type?”

“He is,” Yunho says wearily. “Anyone with a pulse is your type.”

“He _does_ have really pretty eyes,” San adds over the sound of Wooyoung's outraged sputtering. He’s draped against Jongho’s other side where the trio had commandeered Yunho’s couch on arrival.

“I thought we were all meeting him at the same time?” Jongho frowns. 

“San has seen a piece of Hongjoong's face before when he kept me company at the store,” Yunho is quick to supply when it looks like Jongho is about to start doling out evil eyes at someone other than Wooyoung, especially when that other someone happens to be the latest addition to his romantic triad. “He said Hongjoong had pretty eyes that night, too.”

Apparently that extra tidbit makes Jongho frown harder, and both Mingi and San direct squinted glares at Yunho for making him do it. 

“Don’t worry, you have the prettiest eyeballs I’ve ever seen,” San affectionately whispers against Jongho’s ear.

Mingi presses in close from the other side. “I too have eyeballs.”

Wooyoung aggressively slams a plastic serving tray of chips and candy on Yunho’s coffee table. “Can you people _not_ do your weird canoodling when I am the only sad and single around? Cut me some slack.”

“I would like to point out that I am also single,” Yunho says mildly.

“You have a date with Shin Hyejeong,” Wooyoung hisses. “So you can shut your whore mouth.”

Yunho makes it as far as a sharp, “Rude,” before his phone pings with a message, which he ignores since it's followed closely by a knock at the door. He finds Hongjoong there grinning, dressed in a huge sweater and baggy pants that match his horrible neon yellow beanie. “You look like you should be in the middle of the street directing traffic.”

“You’re not allowed to call me mean ever again,” Hongjoong jovially replies. He grabs hold of Yunho’s shirt to drag him down until he can put his mouth almost directly against Yunho’s ear, “Look, the change has been a little harder to control than I thought it would so I may need your help tonight covering it. Okay?”

“Got it,” Yunho garbles out, shocked by the accidental contact of Hongjoong’s lips to his ear — a reminder of the night not so long ago when Hongjoong had left his tongue and teeth there and laughed while Yunho squirmed. “Are you ready to meet the circus clowns I hang out with?”

Hongjoong releases him with a roll of his eyes. “I’m sure they’re not that bad.”

“Is that neighbor guy?” Mingi yells out obnoxiously loud. “Hi, neighbor guy! Yunho won’t let me touch your sticky notes!”

Mingi is a dead man, Yunho thinks while his face burns and Hongjoong smirks, still standing at the threshold. “Thought you lost all my notes.”

“I may have kept one or two,” Yunho admits. He opens the door wider, steps out of the way so his friends can get a good look at his _other_ friend. It feels a little like introducing a boyfriend to over-involved parents, though Yunho carefully tucks that thought in the dark reaches of his brain next to his proclivity for obsessing over definitely not cursed catboys and the attraction to Hongjoong he is absolutely, one hundred percent over.

Wooyoung noticeably quiets. 

Hongjoong doesn’t step too far into the room, hovering close to Yunho’s side as they all greet each other. Jongho thankfully keeps San from trying to offer a hug, and Mingi kicks Wooyoung’s thigh to get him to speak when he’s, predictably, tongue tied by Hongjoong’s appearance. For once, Hongjoong doesn’t answer each question with a sharp almost insult and is actually _nice_. He’s still shy and awkward and gets a little scrunched faced when Mingi asks what he does for a job since he’s not in school.

“Internet stuff,” Hongjoong answers after a beat. He’s perched himself on Yunho’s kitchen counter that faces the living room, a convenient handful of steps to the front door if he needs to take a break. “And before you ask, _no_ it has nothing to do with OnlyFans.”

“Did someone seriously ask you that?” Wooyoung wonders.

From his place on the floor, Yunho throws a chip at Hongjoong’s face before he can say anything smart. “It was a legitimate question!”

“Not everyone hears _internet_ and thinks _oh porn_ like you do, perv,” Hongjoong teases.

“So what kind of internet stuff do you do?” San asks. “I remember asking if you were a mukbanger but you said no.”

Hongjoong hums around a mouthful of beer, rolls the bottle between his palms nervously. “It’s like voice acting but not as rigid since there’s no script. It’s more of a stream of consciousness thing while I play games on twitch or on Youtube.”

“Oh my god,” Jongho wheezes, “Oh my god, hold on, are you one of those VTubers Yunho is always trying to pretend he’s not subscribed to? Is that why he’s been so obsessive about being friends?”

Yunho manages a strangled, “What?” While Hongjoong laughs so hard he looks as if he’s in danger of falling off the counter, his eyes curving into sweet crescents, covering his mouth with the end of his sweater. 

“How in the fuck,” Yunho says incredulously, knocking Wooyoung’s knee under the table to get him to quit gawking. 

Wooyoung leans against Yunho’s side. “Did you think you were being, like, covert? Your phone goes off all the time with notifications for that cross-dressing catboy and then you get all blushy and shifty-eyed about it every time until you come up with an excuse to get to your computer.”

Hongjoong, somehow, laughs harder, actually allows his body to drop to the floor so he can cackle into his knees. Yunho groans and buries his face into his hands wishing the floor would open up and swallow him whole.

“No,” Mingi breathes. “Is Hongjoong-ssi—”

“I’m the catboy,” Hongjoong howls with tears of mirth beading up at the corner of his lashes. “Fucking—Yunho, how often were you in my super chats?”

“Once or twice,” Yunho admits. If he wasn’t regretting the night before, he’s doing it now, especially when he’s been made aware his efforts of hiding his ridiculous fixation were all for naught. Worse yet, _Hongjoong_ knows. “Can we _please_ change the subject instead of turning this into make fun of Yunho hour?”

“It’s always the hour to make fun of you,” San says bland. “But maybe we should do something other than interrogate Hongjoong-ssi. How about a movie?”

Yunho jolts when he feels a familiar hand pat his head, looks up to find Hongjoong still flushed grinning down at him. “Spread out.”

“I’m not your chair,” Yunho gripes, but does as he’s asked and makes room, huffing a little from Hongjoong’s weight dropping into his lap.

“Then you should buy more furniture to sit on if you’re going to have people over.” Hongjoong affectionately pats his chin then pulls Yunho’s arms around his waist. For a moment Yunho thinks it’s just to be cute, but beneath his hands he can feel the tell-tale squirm of Hongjoong’s actual tail vibrating under his palms and presses down to keep it in check. Hongjoong gives him a thankful glance. 

“Says the man who doesn’t even have any chairs,” Yunho grumbles, tucking his chin over the crown of Hongjoong’s head. It’s amazing how well they seem to fit together like this the few times Hongjoong had climbed his way into Yunho’s personal bubble, like the time he’d treated Yunho’s earlobes like his own personal salt licks.

Hongjoong smacks Yunho’s wrists. “I do too have a chair.”

“That doesn’t count when you can’t sit in it because of all your clothes! It’s more like a non-functional wardrobe at this point.”

“Yes. Well.” Hongjoong crosses his arms, his tail wriggling hard at the base pressed up against Yunho’s belly. “Shut up.”

“I feel like I’m watching an old married couple yell at each other,” Mingi says, breaking through the oddly charged exchange. “But, like, lovingly.”

“Are mom and dad getting a divorce?” San asks.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to petition for full custody,” Hongjoong coos with mock sincerity, both hands held to his heart. “We’ll move out to the countryside where you can make new friends and forget about dad.”

“I regret letting you people meet,” Yunho sighs under the sound of the group’s cackling.

Hongjoong leans back to bump his nose to the underside of Yunho’s chin and whispers, “Liar.”

They watch back to back movies, booing and throwing popcorn at the screen at parts they collectively agree are terrible and don’t advance the plot. Yunho finds it hard to concentrate on anything that isn’t the shift of Hongjoong’s body in his lap, Hongjoong playing with his fingers, Hongjoong beginning to tilt sideways until Yunho has to pull him in tight to his chest. Wooyoung offers his own lap for Hongjoong’s convenience, though Hongjoong only blinks syrupy slow and says, “Maybe next time,” around a deep yawn. 

The vice like squeeze of jealousy is like a band around Yunho’s throat. Even reminding himself he’s got a date and a potential girlfriend waiting in the wings doesn’t seem to help smother the burn of anger — Hongjoong isn’t his boyfriend and Yunho has literally no claim to him, but still he wants to scream ‘I saw him first’. 

Jongho and Hongjoong are both dead to the world by the time they all agree staring at the darkened Netflix homepage quietly whispering is getting old. 

“Do you need some help waking him up,” Wooyoung asks while San and Mingi finagle Jongho to San’s back for the journey to the elevator and, presumably, down to San’s apartment for an explicit version of a sleepover. “Hongjoong looks wiped out.”

“He’s under a tremendous amount of stress right now,” Yunho says with a wince. “I’m just going to move him to the couch instead of making him get up.”

Mingi hears this and immediately butts in, “Are you going to be able to handle having your catboy fantasy in your apartment all night?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Yunho replies unthinkingly. Three pairs of eyes settle on him as his face burns. “Not like _that_ obviously.”

He ends up having to shut the door in their faces when Wooyoung can’t resist turning back with a devious, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Talk about setting the bar low.” Yunho rolls his eyes.

Hongjoong groans a little in his sleep. His beanie, somehow, gets caught beneath his head in just the perfect position that it falls off to reveal the tangled wreck of his hair and the fluffy triangles of his ears. They’d been human when Hongjoong had come over. Yunho gently runs his fingers through Hongjoong’s fringe. Controlling the change must take an enormous amount of effort, no wonder he’s out cold.

Hongjoong’s nose scrunches adorably until he’s blinking awake, fuzzy-eyed. Even like this he’s so effortlessly pretty it makes Yunho’s teeth ache. “Yuyu?”

“The guys just left,” he says in lieu of the adoring noises he wants to press into Hongjoong’s skin; his mouth; the sweet curve of his relaxed ears. He does let himself indulge in running his fingers through the tangles on Hongjoong’s head, disinclined to make Hongjoong get up and go home across the hall, basking in the lazy purrs coming from Hongjoong’s chest.

“Your friends are nice.”

“To _you_ maybe.” Yunho scratches his nails along the base of Hongjoong’s ears and is rewarded with a deep reverberating groan and Hongjoong’s hands coming up to knead at his elbow. “Was tonight okay? I honestly didn’t think you’d be up for meeting so many people at once when talking to me was like pulling teeth.”

Hongjoong yawns wide. “I don’t have time to be skittish anymore. Plus the ofudas helped.”

Yunho pauses, ignoring the tantalizing whine that falls out of Hongjoong’s mouth. “The what?”

Hongjoong sits up. His eyes are so lidded and clouded with sleep that Yunho isn’t sure if he knows what he’s doing or where he is or if he’s going to remember this in the morning, but he pulls at the sweater he’s got on to reveal the linen talismans from the first box pasted strategically over his chest, further up towards his neck and arms. Yunho does not at all notice the mouth watering musculature revealed and instead focuses on the bizarre writing.

“Is that what they’re for? Control?” Yunho squints at the one on Hongjoong’s stomach. “What do they say?”

Hongjoong shrugs. “Dunno. It’s all archaic what’s it the family hires some shaman to create with crow spirit blessings. I used to wear them a lot as a kid but they would itch and I’d scratch them off after like an hour.”

Yunho recalls the symbol for crow scrawled on the interior of the first box before Hongjoong had shredded it. None of it makes sense — curses and spirits and imprints, all of them foreign concepts with no real answers connecting them in Yunho’s brain. Then again, being friends with an actual living breathing catboy doesn’t make sense either and yet here they are.

“Ah.”

Hongjoong sways gently with a nonexistent breeze. “I’m gonna put my shirt down now.”

“Do whatever you want.” Yunho eyes the edge of the talisman as it’s slowly hidden from view. “Er — do you want to take those off first? They’ve clearly worn off if your ears are out.”

“Oh!” Hongjoong totally removes his shirt this time, an exuberant _yes_ falling out of his mouth. “There’s one on my back I can’t reach if you could peel it off for me.”

The second his skin makes contact with the talisman — the ofuda per Hongjoong — it erupts into a flash of blue fire, disintegrating before his eyes without leaving so much as a piece of lint or ash to prove it was there in the first place. “Um.”

“Thank you,” Hongjoong sighs in relief. “That one took forever to get on. I had to bend myself like a pretzel.”

And isn’t _that_ a lovely mental image. Yunho rubs his fingers together as a distraction, trying to find some semblance of residue, something to focus on that isn’t the expanse of Hongjoong’s skin on display. Hongjoong’s tail thrashes once on the floor, a loud thwap against his carpet that makes its owner squint at it distrustfully.

Yunho smothers a laugh. “You can put your shirt back on now.”

“Yeah,” Hongjoong sighs while wadding up the collection of talismans he’d pulled off. He blinks out of synch. “What time is it?”

Yunho pushes the empty popcorn bowl toward him as a makeshift trash can. “Late. You staying over?”

Hongjoong sways lightly, his chest covered in goose flesh. “Can I?”

“When have I ever denied you access to my home and or my bed?” 

Hongjoong grins at him lopsided and sweet. “Never. Because you’re my biggest fan.”

“Because I’m your _friend,_ ” Yunho denies.

Not having any of it, Hongjoong grins wider. “Nah, it’s ‘cause you have a catboy fetish and I’m, like, your walking wet dream. Admit it!”

“I cannot stand you,” Yunho growls, pushing a cackling and shirtless Hongjoong to his bathroom where a new toothbrush is waiting in his medicine cabinet. He has a last swallowing moment when Hongjoong looks at it, at the extra pillow Yunho pulls from his closet, and the extra blanket he’d bought when Hongjoong had shivered dramatically in his arms the last time they’d done this.

“Yunho,” Hongjoong murmurs, low and throaty and overwhelmed. His ears and his tail shift wildly for an instant before settling back into a relaxed neutral, his face flushes pink. 

“Just shut up and come cuddle,” Yunho says, burying his head in his pillow waiting for the familiar weight of Hongjoong’s body rolling over him to his designated spot next to the wall. Unlike every other time they’ve shared an impromptu sleepover, Hongjoong doesn’t roll from one side to the other in one smooth movement in favor of pausing once he’s straddling Yunho’s back, hands digging into his shoulder blades as he leans forward and leaves a single closed-mouth kiss to the back of his head. 

“Gross,” Yunho lies, and it’s a good thing he’s making a go of suffocating himself with cotton and linen or else he’d be making a noise akin to a dying whale.

“Fanboy,” Hongjoong reminds him, but by the time Yunho has come up with some kind of pithy response Hongjoong is already facing the wall, tail draped over Yunho’s hips, and breathing slow and even in deep sleep. Yunho just tucks him in close to his chest, Hongjoong an unconscious perfect curve against his front. 

Despite how perfectly Hongjoong slots into his arms, the cold reality is this: Hongjoong has a time limit and the terrible inevitability of the future is fast approaching. Yunho feels secretly guilty that he’s brought his friends into this now when he’s still struggling to find even a crumb of evidence that a cure exists, that he can single handedly save Hongjoong from turning completely. From _leaving_.

Hongjoong rolls over in his sleep with a sigh, his slack mouth pressed unerringly on Yunho’s throat. Yunho holds him tighter, presses his own lips to the center of Hongjoong’s forehead silently vowing to find an answer.

\--------------

Yunho lives in a near constant paralyzing sort of fear that each day is going to be _the_ day. That he’s going to open his eyes and Hongjoong will be gone for good, the apartment across the hall is going to be sitting vacant and the uploaded streams on Dokkaebi’s channel will serve as a virtual archival-type mausoleum. So when he opens his eyes to find a human-eared, tailless Hongjoong grinning over him with feline pupils, Yunho thinks for a moment that he’s hallucinating.

“Let’s go get breakfast,” Hongjoong demands.

“Your eyes are doing the cat thing right now,” Yunho informs him, frowning when he notices, “is that another one of my hoodies?”

Hongjoong neatly sidesteps the question. “It’s close enough to Halloween that I can say they’re just contacts. We should go back to that bagel place.”

“You’re going to turn into a damn bagel,” Yunho mutters, then, “and I do actually have a finite amount of clothes, you know.”

Hongjoong ignores that, too, in favor of dragging Yunho away from the soft comfort of his bed, still warm from their shared body heat, down to the unforgiving cold waiting for them outside. Yunho pretends the burn in his cheeks and his ears is just early onset frostbite and isn’t at all caused by seeing Hongjoong swallowed up in his clothes or the way Hongjoong huffs and grabs his hand to hold, hidden, in the big side pocket. Like a date would, though Yunho knows it’s just the way Hongjoong operates with someone he’s allowed himself to be close to — nothing more. 

“You’re like one of those hot packs,” Hongjoong sighs contentedly. “Your hands are always so warm when I’m freezing to death.” 

_Shin Hyejeong_ is the silent mantra Yunho repeats in his head. He’d made a promise to try to forget, and no amount of adorable hand holding or the heavy weight of Hongjoong’s body pressing up distractingly along his side for warmth is going to make him rethink his decision. Not even when Hongjoong breathes an almost inaudible purr when Yunho slides his thumb over the frigid ridge of Hongjoong’s knuckles still interlocked together out of sight.

\--------------

“So,” Wooyoung begins during their next studio session together. “Kim Hongjoong.”

“Wooyoung,” Yunho warns.

His friend pouts his way through a leg stretch. “What? Don’t get pissy at me when you’re the one who said he’d be my type. I’m just _agreeing_ with you and also asking if he’s still single.” Yunho glares his way through Wooyoung’s additional, “Reminder that you’ve had time to make a move and decided to go on a date with Hyejeong instead.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose does nothing to impede the angry headache beginning to pulse in his brain. “There are a multitude of extremely valid reasons for keeping my mouth shut. You cannot seriously be doing this to me right now.”

Wooyoung looks up at him from where his chin nearly rests against his knees. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. What are you going to do when someone else comes along and asks Hongjoong out for real?”

Yunho pauses in the middle of his own stretch. If Hongjoong wasn’t cursed — if he didn’t rely on linen talismans to keep his secret transformation hidden from view — what _would_ Yunho do if someone swooped in and swept Hongjoong off his feet? They’re supposed to be friends, but the sudden mental image of someone else’s hoodie wrapped around his frame or a phantom hand tracing the lush swell of Hongjoong’s lips makes Yunho's blood boil — makes his throat squeeze with sudden almost murderous jealousy. 

He grits his teeth. “Wouldn’t be any of my business.”

“So then give me his number.”

“Get it yourself,” Yunho seethes at the ground. “I’m not passing out his info without his permission.”

Wooyoung blinks innocently. “No worries, I’ll just get it from San.”

Mind blank with the angry fuzz of television static, Yunho furiously asks, “Since when does _San_ have his number?”

“Since, like, two hours ago when he bought your friend lunch,” Wooyoung cackles. “Dude, holy shit, your _face_ right now.”

Bitter that San apparently gained easy access to Hongjoong’s good graces over the course of a day when it had taken him weeks and weeks and _weeks_ of trying, Yunho growls, “I hate you. I hate all of you so goddamn much.”

“Shin Hyejeong,” Wooyoung singsongs before returning dutifully to his routine as the first group of students jostle each other at the door.

\--------------

Hyejeong has been texting him saying her only free night for the next week and a half is the same night as the new moon. Against his better judgement and with regret sitting heavy in his gut, Yunho accepts. He’s fully aware he shouldn’t, because all he’s doing is leading her on and wasting both of their time, but he’s already agreed and it’s not like he can just suddenly say no thanks after a week. Studio hours are going to be awkward enough once it’s over but this way he can bow out of it by saying he had a good time but dating is off the menu. They can be friends and co-workers who tried but unfortunately couldn’t make it work.

Wooyoung’s voice rings in his head the entire trip home and with it a whole host of terrible mental images of Hongjoong wrapped around someone else, his tongue on an earlobe that isn’t Yunho’s. Grinning mischievously around mystery fingers while his raspy tongue catches on their knuckles. The rush of ugly possessive jealousy just picturing the scene makes him dizzy, has him sick to his stomach — he’s never felt the crush of greed like this, not with Mingi, not with Hyejeong, not with the multiple other people he’s had vague and passing feelings for since puberty descended on him in middle school.

What he should do is call Hyejeong, right now, apologize for wasting her time and deal with the nuclear fallout of her disappointment, and then he needs to find a cure for Hongjoong’s curse so he can at least think of the future beyond the next few weeks, and how best to confess everything he’s been feeling without it landing at Hongjoong’s feet in a confusing jumble of directionless infatuated verbal diarrhea. 

Instead, he knocks on Hongjoong’s door, letting himself in after a period of no answer since his friend and neighbor told him he had a surprise waiting for when Yunho managed to get away from the dance studio.

Sitting prim and proper in the middle of Hongjoong’s living room floor is a gorgeous Siamese cat with its black ears and tail twitching gently. Yunho stares at it and then at the rest of the apartment void of Hongjoong’s usual frenetic nervous chatter. His body goes cold, fingers gone nerveless as he drops to his knees and reaches out. 

Tremulously he whispers, “Hongjoong?”

“Yes?” Echoes from behind him and Yunho jumps, only to come face to face with Hongjoong fresh from the shower still towel drying his hair and ears. “Why are you on the floor? Are you trying to Vulcan mindmeld with Byeol or something?”

Yunho glances back. Sure enough, the sweet blue-eyed cat is the spitting image of San’s pet. Or _is_ San’s pet, in this case. “Uh—”

Hongjoong steps around him to coo at her, gently scratching the underside of Byeol’s chin, grinning when she begins to purr and knead the floor. 

“Can I ask why you have San’s cat?”

Hongjoong allows Byeol to climb into his arms, holds her up to press his cheek against her head. “San had some kind of juggling two boyfriends personal emergency and needed someone to watch over her for a day or two, so I volunteered. Plus, she’s really sweet.” They bump noses. “Aren’t you, my lady?”

Byeol offers up a small agreeing mew and another intense round of purring, working her nails against the rough fabric of Hongjoong’s towel. 

“Speaking of mindmelding,” Yunho accuses while Hongjoong laughs, Byeol’s tiny rough tongue tickling his chin. It is wholly unfair that an actual cat is making him see green. “Since when do you and San talk?”

“Since you introduced us.” Hongjoong's smile is crooked, eyes curved like he knows exactly what’s going through Yunho’s head and finds it utterly amusing. “He bought me steak so I trust him. I think he was going to let your friend Wooyoung watch her for the weekend, but he wouldn’t answer his phone.”

Yunho scrunches his nose up in disgust. “Do you trust anyone that buys you meat? Like, is that all it would have taken to get you to talk to me months ago?”

Hongjoong considers the question for all of three seconds before nodding solemnly and answering, “Yes.” He laughs at Yunho’s howl of outrage, setting Byeol down in favor of wrapping his arms around Yunho’s waist. “I’m _kidding_. I only talked to San because he’s your friend and I trust anyone you deem worthy of your inner circle. You have good people instincts.”

Mouth working on a reply his brain can’t seem to formulate, Yunho gives a stilted, “Your hair’s still wet,” and mashes the towel into Hongjoong’s face so he can’t see the fire engine red creeping in along Yunho’s ears. He can physically feel the spread of it, and any minute now Hongjoong is going to take one long look into the molten core of him and unknot the tangled web of feelings Yunho keeps carefully tucked away.

Towel dropped into a damp mound on the floor, Hongjoong hums good naturedly and directs Yunho towards his desk. “Anyway, the reason I invited you over is because the artists have finalized the Halloween outfit for Dokkaebi today and I know you’re not going to blab.” He pulls up an attachment from some official looking email to reveal a picture of him — of Kim Dokkaebi anyway — dressed in a skimpy maid uniform that’s apparently going to have a high slit in the back to reveal black lace bloomers. “Isn’t he cute?”

Jesus fuck, he’s going to combust right here and now. Yunho manages a strangled and high pitched, “Mhmm.”

Hongjoong smirks. “That’s it?”

Yunho takes in the ruffled hem, the heart shape cutout on the avatar’s chest large enough that the artist team has decided to show an x-rated edge of pearl pink nipple on each side, and suffers some sort of dead brain schism between his common sense and his mouth that ends with him blurting, “Would _you_ ever wear something like that?”

“Maybe.” Hongjoong eyebrows raise. “For the right price, absolutely.”

For a laugh, Yunho digs out his wallet and shakes it at him. “I will pay you every penny I have saved, right now, if you put on a maid uniform and meow at someone in the building.”

Tail whipping behind him, Hongjoong pulls him close by one of his belt loops and husks, “Oh Yuyu, for _you_ I’d do it for free.”

“You are literally the devil,” Yunho accuses, knowing he’s red from the tip of his ears down to his neck in one simultaneous rush by the way Hongjoong bursts out laughing so hard his voice ends up cracking into breathless noise. "Seriously, you suck."

"Not for free though," Hongjoong singsongs, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. "What are you doing tomorrow night?"

He winces. Tomorrow he’ll be on the world’s most fatalistically doomed date trying to convince Hyejeong she’s made a grave and terrible error in trying to get Yunho to commit to something _casual_. 

“Actually, I’m busy tomorrow night.”

Hongjoong waits, mouth pulled down a little at the edges. “With what? Schoolwork?”

“No, I, uh—” Yunho casts around for a decent enough lie, but Hongjoong knows him well enough by this point that he’s fairly sure it would only cause worse suspicion than admitting the truth. “I have a date.”

Something in Hongjoong’s expression shutters. “Oh. I see.”

“It was this last minute thing, she’s been asking and I just felt like—” Yunho tries, but is interrupted by Hongjoong covering his mouth, a weird look on his face and monotone, “It’s fine. I hope you have fun.”

“Do you,” Yunho wonders, but by then Hongjoong is pushing him out with two thumbs up and a hasty good luck.

The door slams harder than usual at his back. 

_**\-------------** _

Shin Hyejeong is gorgeous and beguiling and any innumerable amount of complimentary descriptors, and if Yunho weren’t himself he’d probably be tripping all over himself trying to make a good impression, but as it is he’s nervous sweating through his nicest cotton top feeling somehow as if he’s cheating. She delicately taps the nervous drum of Yunho’s fingers and suggests, “You look like you could use some fresh air.”

There’s a park near Yunho's workplace where they leisurely meander. Hyejeong sidles up close, though Yunho absolutely refuses to cross the DMZ of space between their hands to hold hers, or do anything that might encourage her to keep trying. He eyes the bright sliver of the new moon visible through the small collection of trees feeling uneasy and weird. Part of him wonders how Hongjoong is doing, locked away in his apartment, but more than likely he’s sitting in front of his three screens playing Grand Theft Auto while sulking about his ears getting in the way of normal headphone use.

“Yunho,” Hyejeong murmurs and stops him in the middle of the first curve. “You’re not really feeling this, are you?”

“I’m sorry,” Yunho says, shamed. “You’re great, I just don’t think I’m in the right headspace to date anyone right now.”

Hyejeong stares at him mute for a moment, before smiling sadly. “Someone got to you before me, huh? You can be honest.”

Yunho thinks of Hongjoong’s face when he heard about tonight — the awkward stiffness in his arms when he tried to be supportive — and suddenly, for the first time in weeks, wishes he were more honest with himself as a whole. “Yeah,” he admits, deflating. “The whole situation is complicated. I don’t even know if they return my feelings, but—”

“But you’d be over the moon if they did.” She taps her chin. “Mean of you to lead me on like this tonight, Jeong Yunho. I even shaved above the knee for you.” 

“I know and I’m really sorry.” He bows low, apologetic and guilty, but Hyejeong only bops lightly along his shoulders in reprimand.

“So what are you still doing here?” The light surrounding the park is dim, seems to get caught up in the deep shadows of surrounding flora and the nooks and crannies between the trees, though there is just enough illumination for Yunho to catch the glint of blue in Hyejeong’s eyes — a reflection from a passing vehicle, maybe. “Stop bottling your feelings up and go tell him.”

_**\-------------** _

Hongjoong isn’t currently on stream, but he’s not answering his door or his phone. Seonghwa and Yeosang both deny having him over and make it a point to tell him they’re almost never allowed to see Hongjoong on the new moon anyway. 

Yunho leans his forehead against Hongjoong’s door. 

“Hyung, it’s me,” he calls against the grain, thinking maybe Hongjoong had barricaded himself in because of another mystery package Yunho wasn’t here to intercept. “Can you please open the door? I need to talk to you about something important.”

The silence is broken by a low pitched yowl from deep within that sounds nothing like Hongjoong, like nothing _human_ and Yunho knows Byeol is back in San’s apartment probably destroying San’s shoelaces out of spite for abandoning her. He knocks again and this time another hissing sort of guttural noise echoes back, and Yunho thinks, fuck it. Hongjoong gave him a key for a reason. If someone or some _thing_ is in there destroying his apartment, Yunho can at least shoo it away before Hongjoong gets back.

He doesn’t expect the source of the noise to be Hongjoong, curled into a painful bone breaking ball, sobbing as his body seems to contract in on itself in waves.

Hongjoong’s eyes are nearly all black, his face a rictus of pain around the jagged teeth in his mouth bloodying his lips so bad it drips in thick blurts to the floor. His arms are covered in a new layer of dark black fur, concealing the deep gashes Hongjoong’s nails are making as they dig into his skin. 

“Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Yunho panics, “Shit, what can I do?”

Tail crooked in ways that makes Yunho sick to look at, Hongjoong manages a thin, “O-of-fffff-u—”

There’s a neat stack of the linen talismans near the room divider. Yunho rushes to place as many as he can on Hongjoong’s arms, his legs, lifting his shirt to put them in as many places as he can remember hoping the fur and the spasming muscles there aren’t going to nullify the effects.

Hongjoong seems to unclench a little after the fifth one adheres itself, breathing ragged and wounded and animalistic into Yunho’s chest, stretched out on the floor together, while they wait for the worst of it to pass. Every hiccuping, desperate inhale adds another seeping crack to Yunho’s chest right along the emotional core of him.

Hongjoong’s hair is matted with sweat and blood and a little — a lot — of Yunho’s tears. Yunho slides his fingers through the mess trying to be as comforting as possible. “What happened to you?”

“New moon,” Hongjoong says shakily, lispy from his new teeth. “Was — was harder than usual. Can’t stop the change anymore.”

Yunho chews his bottom lip, suddenly so angry with himself for leaving Hongjoong to suffer alone and entertaining the thought of confessing when Hongjoong is going through something so obviously traumatic. “Can you stand? We should get you cleaned up.”

“In a minute,” Hongjoong slurs. His nails are starting to go back to slightly duller points still caked in drying blood. “Thank you.”

Too weak to stand, Yunho helps Hongjoong step into a warm bath, dutifully keeping his eyes averted until Hongjoong is safely tucked chin deep in it and not in any immediate danger of drowning. 

Yunho glances worriedly at Hongjoong’s mouth, red and raw. “We have to find your imprint.”

Hongjoong snorts. “And what the fuck do _you_ know about imprints?”

“Nothing.” Yunho scrubs the dried tracks of tears off his cheeks. “Which is kind of the point. We need to find whatever or whoever it is so this doesn’t happen again.” His breath shakes on the next inhale. “You scared me.”

“Yeah, well, I scared me too.” Hongjoong scowls down at the cloudy surface of the water turned pink with his blood. “I don’t know who told you about them, but the imprint thing didn’t work for me. It’s clearly not going to work for me either, so just drop it.”

“But—”

“Yunho,” Hongjoong says tiredly. His face is exhaustion and sadness and the impossibly deep pain of an open wound. “I know you mean well, but, please, my imprint is interested in someone else and there’s nothing I can do about it, okay?”

“So it _is_ a person,” Yunho says, latching on to hope. 

Hongjoong squeezes his eyes shut. “Yunho—”

“If you know who they are, then let’s go find them so they can do...whatever it is they’re supposed to do to break the curse.”

Hongjoong eyes him oddly. “Why do you care so much?” He looks at the clock on his phone and blanches.”Weren’t you supposed to be on a date? You idiot, why are you _here_?”

“Who cares about a stupid date? I was worried about you.” Yunho ducks to try and get Hongjoong to look at him with no avail. “Your imprint?”

“Seriously, who told you about that?” Hongjoong viciously swipes a hand through the murky waters. His eyes flash deep yellow, so slitted they resemble a snake’s. “Did you not hear me the first time? It doesn’t matter. They aren’t interested and they aren’t going to be so just — just drop it.” Hongjoong squeezes his hands around his arms over the healing puncture wounds still sluggishly oozing. “I already told you no one could love a beast anyway, it was useless for me to have even hoped for anything else.”

Yunho’s heart stutters. “Hongjoong—”

“Yunho, please just go. I appreciate your help and I'm thankful you were here, but this is an exercise in futility.” Ears laid flat, Hongjoong presses the back of his hand to his mouth, tears welling up. “I’ve got decisions to make.”

“About your imprint?” Yunho asks hopefully. “About changing their mind?”

“Sure,” Hongjoong replies dully. “Just let me clean up in peace. I’ll text you tomorrow.”

_**\---------------**_

His phone remains silent for the entirety of the morning. Hongjoong doesn’t text or call or answer his door even when Yunho sticks a new note to it. Yunho chews his nails down the quick while he waits for some kind of acknowledgement. He ignores his classwork for the first time in god knows how many years, calls in sick to both the dance hall supervisor and his boss at the convenience store.

Sometime around lunch, his phone pings with a message from Yeosang asking him to come to theirs.

“I found someone willing to talk to you about Hongjoong but he’s only going to do it over Skype.” Yeosang has his laptop set up on their kitchen table with a nicer looking camera setup than anything Yunho has seen in Hongjoong’s apartment. “You know the fox?”

“The animal?” Yunho asks, totally confused. 

“Well, yes, and no.” Yeosang drums his fingers on the hard mahogany. “Hongjoong sometimes mentions him on his streams, but there’s another VTuber in his company that shares a similar set of circumstances. His curse originates from a raccoon dog spirit biting one of his ancestors.”

Head spinning, Yunho manages a reedy, “A _what_?” 

“I’ll just let him explain it to you,” Yeosang sighs, accepting the ringing notification. “Hey, Felix. This is Yunho, the guy I was telling you about the other day.”

“Hey,” a voice echoes over the program. His camera is turned totally off. “Sorry for the wait. Time zones and everything.”

“That’s — fine,” Yunho stutters. “Uh, so, a raccoon dog?”

Felix lapses into silence for a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know either. The spirits were a lot easier to piss off back in the good ol’ days.”

“So then why are you a fox?”

Yeosang shoots him a nasty look, but, really, it’s a valid question and Yunho is here to get _answers_ , not to field pissy looks from the peanut gallery for being curious. Felix seems to take the question in stride. “Dunno. I guess it was protecting a fox at the time and wanted my ancestor to learn a lesson. Where’s Seonghwa?”

“Working,” Yeosang obfuscates. “Tell us what you know about imprints. You found yours, right?”

“Yeah. Chan's a good egg.” Felix clears his throat. “Imprints are like — you know baby ducks, right?”

“Oh dear god,” Yunho mutters, ignoring Yeosang’s bony elbow digging into his side.

“Anyway,” Felix continues, “imprints are kind of like that, where we form a strong connection with someone in the hope that they’ll return it in kind and stay with us. I know my curse is a lot different from Hongjoong’s because it can’t actually be _broken_ like his can, but having my imprint close by during full moons helps keep me in control. Without him I’d be going berserk in the middle of the road chasing, like, squirrels ‘n shit. Or trying to catch chlamydia from fighting koala.”

Yunho rubs tiredly at his face. “So it’s just a person you’re close with?”

Felix hums. “Well, for me it was. For Hongjoong, it’s a little bit more intense.”

Yunho presses him to elaborate. Even Yeosang leans unnecessarily close to the laptop while they wait for an answer.

“Hongjoong’s curse is a doozy,” Felix finally starts. “His is actually more like a page out of the Beauty and the Beast playbook in that his imprint also has to be this, like, be all, end all love of his life. If they don’t mesh, or if he accidentally imprints on the wrong person then —” They hear rustling over the line and suddenly Felix’s freckled face is lighting up the screen, big blonde ears standing proud on his head. He mimes a throat cutting motion with his fingers with added sound effects. “His ancestor pissed off a damn _deity._ ”

_**\--------------** _

Yunho barely moves from the table once Felix and Yeosang say their goodbyes. 

“A deity.”

“A minor deity,” Yeosang corrects, sounding just as shell shocked and sick to his stomach as Yunho feels. 

Minor or not, they were powerful enough to curse an entire generational line of humans for the transgression of scaring the wildlife, or whatever the original curse was about, now lost to time. They share a grim faced glance.

Yunho leans back in his chair. “Has Hongjoong mentioned the packages he’s been getting?”

“Big unmarked things with weird writing all over the interior?” 

He nods. "And fake blood thrown around and stuffed cats torn apart."

Yeosang groans loud and long into his hands. “Christ, I thought they would have stopped after the move. Some cousin of his is pregnant and worried her kid is going to end up a cat and has been harassing him to—” His jaw flexes. “You know. I think his parents might be in on it too.”

“His family sucks,” Yunho directs mostly at the ceiling, though Yeosang hums fervent agreement beside him. “Any ideas who Hongjoong’s imprint might be? He says he knows them but it’s useless to try. I’d like to prove him wrong.”

Yeosang digs a palm against his eye. “I have an idea but nothing concrete. Nothing I can prove, anyway.”

“So we’re at a dead end,” Yunho says. His head hurts. His heart hurts. He wants to go back to the days when Hongjoong didn’t ignore his phone calls and invited himself in for cuddles at weird hours of the night. “I’m going to go take a nap, my head _kills_.”

“Keep your schedule open,” Yeosang urges at the door. “And if you find anything out—”

“I’ll let you know.” Yunho glances back toward the closed doorway to the shared bedroom. “Hey, where _is_ Seonghwa?”

“Working,” Yeosang says sweetly, and slams the door in his face.

_**\--------------**_

_“I told you mama says I break all my toys,” his neighbor friend sniffs pathetically._

_He’s holding two pieces of plastic popped off from Yunho’s favorite action figure. Yunho’s dad is always saying not to cry over things that might be fixable, like when he turned his tricycle wrong and the wheel got stuck at an angle, but seeing the crumbled plastic in his friend’s hands makes Yunho want to cry. Just a little bit._

_Yunho manfully resists the urge, scrubs his face in the curve of his elbow, and says, “Don’t worry, my mom can fix it!” He puffs his chest out proudly. “She’s really good at fixing things.”_

_His friend droops, his little body seeming to curve down until he’s crouching low and resting his chin on his kneecaps. The broken action figure is carefully placed on the ground to avoid more damage, tiny clawed fingers leaving a slight gouge in the dirt. “I’m really sorry.”_

_“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Yunho wipes the beginnings of tears from his neighbor’s face with the edge of his sleeve until he’s greeted with a laugh. It ends up leaving his dark lashes clumped awkwardly at odd angles, but that’s okay because Yunho thinks it matches his ears. “Can I ask you a question?”_

_His neighbor sniffs again, angrily swiping an errant tear. “Yeah?”_

_Yunho furrows his brows. “How come you have ears like that?”_

_The little boy’s face pinches inward. “Um — something about my family? Mama says I’m not supposed to show people.” He picks at the inner portion of his duck covered sweater until his fingers hook on a weird looking scrap of paper and he holds the strange thing up for Yunho to see. "This 's supposed to keep them invisible but it itches so I always take it off."_

_“Oh.” Yunho crouches so they’re eye level. “Are you going to get in trouble for telling me?”_

_The little boy shakes his head. “You’re my friend and the weird lady they brought over says I’m allowed to tell at least one person.” His attention gets redirected back to the ground and Ultraman’s missing limbs. “Might as well be you since you still play with me even when I break your toys.”_

_“Accidentally,” Yunho defends reflexively while wondering who this lady could be. A weird aunt, maybe? He had tons of weird aunts and all of them wanted to pinch his cheeks. “It's not like you do it on purpose.”_

_His friend sighs deep, a noise that makes him seem older than his seven years. He flexes his hands so the sharp tipped nails catch the sunlight. “Hey, Yunho?”_

_He blinks. “Yeah?”_

_“Thank you for being my friend.” The oddly-eared boy smiles wide, all of his sharp teeth glinting. “I like you a lot.”_

_Yunho smiles as wide as his jaw will allow. “Yeah! Let’s be friends for a really long time, H—”_

_**\--------------** _

Yunho breaks away from his dream with a gasp, one hand clutching at his chest where his heart is trying to trip over itself and beat triple time. His dreams have been so weird lately, but _this —_

Jittery with nerves, he dials his mother’s number and waits for the familiar cadence of his name to filter out of the speaker.

“Yunho, aren’t you supposed to be in class?” He can hear the worry in her voice and the volume of the living room television being knocked down a notch. “What’s wrong, baby? Is everything alright?”

“Everything is fine, mom, I just have a question for you.” 

“Shoot.”

He can see the future spinning out in dizzying directions hinging on the answer, whether his brain is trying to force a memory or creating false ones out of some pathetic self-preservation instinct. “Remember when I was little and we stayed with your parents for a summer? Did the neighbors have a little boy around my age?”

“Oh honey that was so long ago,” his mother sighs. “I’m not sure—”

“Please,” he says tightly, “Please, it’s important.”

The line is quiet for a full minute. “I don’t know what’s going on, but the neighbors had a son a few years younger than you.” Yunho’s heart drops instantly to the acidic sea of his stomach. “Oh! But they did have a visitor. I think he was a cousin? I wish I could remember his name because it was fairly unique. Hong-something? Hongjun? No, that’s not right.”

“Hongjoong?” Yunho supplies.

“That’s it!” He can hear the low snap of his mother’s fingers. “Kim Hongjoong! Very sweet boy, you were crushed when they sent him away.”

Numb with something bordering on hope, Yunho loses his phone to his bedding, mumbling a quick, “Thanks, bye” to his mother before ending the call.

It’s him.

_He’s the imprint._

**_\--------------_ **

The walk from his bedroom to Hongjoong’s door takes less than thirty steps, under fifteen seconds, an infinite time lag that seems to stretch on forever until his fist finally connects with Hongjoong’s door. He knocks, and knocks, and when that doesn’t work he digs in his pocket for the spare key he keeps and turns the knob.

Hongjoong wrenches the door open before he can let himself in. “What do you want? I’m trying to sleep.”

He’s got deep purpling bags dragging beneath each eye, a red imprint of a cord reshaping on his cheek, and wearing one of the hoodies Yunho assumed he’d lost in the laundry hanging huge and perfect off his frame. His tail makes a lazy swooping arc behind him.

Yunho smiles so hard his face hurts but can’t make himself stop. “Who’s your imprint?”

Hongjoong flushes red, then pales, and goes so spitefully pursed mouth about it he looks like he’s inhaled an entire barrel of lemons in one go. “So, it’s going to look like I’m slamming the door in your face, because I’m slamming the door in your face.”

Yunho catches it at the last second, palm flat and shaking with urgency. “Kim Hongjoong, am I your imprint?”

“Y-you — who said — I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hongjoong stumbles, shrill and pitchy and embarrassed through the gap, which is answer enough in Yunho’s opinion. “Oh my god, would you _let go_ already?”

“No, I don’t think I will,” Yunho happily denies. “I think you should open the door so I can kiss you.”

The weight against the door doesn’t immediately let up, and for a moment Yunho thinks Hongjoong is going to try and run away from this, from _him_.

“I’d like to remind you that you basically licked my chin a couple of weeks ago,” Yunho merrily informs him through the little gap along the frame. “You started it.”

“I was drunk,” Hongjoong rasps.

“You were honest,” Yunho laughs. “Open the door.”

Hongjoong does, though by now his eyes have gone huge and round and terrified. As if he has any reason to be, as if Yunho would take this away from either of them.

“I’ve never broken a curse before,” Yunho intones mildly, pressing his back against the door to get it shut without having to do something as world-endingly awful as losing eye contact right now. “Where do we start?”

Hongjoong is still staring at him wild-eyed, his tail whipping in agitated circles. “It’s not that simple, Yunho. You have to mean it, you can’t do this half-way or—”

“I do mean it.” Yunho takes Hongjoong’s hands hidden in the rolled up sleeves of his hoodie. “I’ve meant it since I saw you again at the convenience store and forgot to remember we shared a summer together. That was probably payback for breaking all of my toys.”

“I distinctly remember warning you I would,” Hongjoong says faintly. “Yunho, this thing — it isn’t casual. It isn’t get to know you dates at the bowling alley or being cute at the coffee shop, alright? It’s intense and it’s _forever_. There are no takebacks here, even if you suddenly decide you don’t want it someday down the line because I will literally die.” His breathing is erratic. His chest expands and contracts like he’s run a marathon and all Yunho can focus on is the stupid flyaway cowlick shying away from Hongjoong’s forehead. “Or turn into a cat. I don’t know, no one has ever gotten this far.”

Yunho leads him to the unmade futon in Hongjoong’s cramped bedroom still overrun with boxes. “I snore. I have a bad habit of moving around in my sleep and I can be kinda anal retentive about doing the dishes before they stack up.” Hongjoong drops to the plush mat with a confused look on his face. Yunho continues, “I don’t know how to drive. My laundry piles up for two weeks before I remember I’m out of underwear.”

“Yunho, what—”

“If we’re going to list off a round of deal breakers, you might as well know my bad habits.” Yunho cups Hongjoong’s face so he can rub his thumbs over the warm cheeks and trace the trail of a power cord indented at the side. “I watched your streams for three years straight without truly knowing what you looked like and fell in love with you anyway.”

Hongjoong’s chin wobbles dangerously. 

“You’re not the only one who isn’t looking for casual.” Yunho swipes away the first tear. “Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll go, but I don’t think I am.”

“You’re so stupid,” Hongjoong bursts out, fisting his hands in the thin material of Yunho’s shirt. “Why’d have to be this perfect, huh? Who said that was fair?”

He tries to say — something. A snarky remark about love and war, but it’s wiped away by Hongjoong tugging him down, tilting his chin up and to the side so their mouths meet in a sudden, indescribably intense rush of heat. Yunho makes an unthinking voiceless whine against the seam of them, trying to pull Hongjoong simultaneously closer and out of his clothes. He tastes startlingly human, like soft skin and old coffee. His tongue is the sand papery roughness of a cat’s, which Yunho finds oddly comforting in the midst of their frenzied attempts at getting skin to skin.

“Hongjoong, what—” He bites back a groan at the sharp sting of Hongjoong’s nails sliding over his scalp in just the way he likes. “What do we do?”

Hongjoong, freed from holding himself back, climbs into Yunho’s lap and attaches himself to his neck, licking over the column of Yunho’s throat up towards his ear. “Just keep touching me.”

His tail swings wildly for a moment before settling across Yunho’s thigh, wrapping itself around the highest point and squeezing rhythmically to the beat of Hongjoong’s purring. Yunho wraps his hands around the thick sturdy cord of Hongjoong’s waist, reveling in the smooth shift of muscle beneath his fingers as he trails upwards over Hongjoong’s spine, counts the vertebrae one by one as if there’s going to be a quiz about it later.

They disconnect briefly to get their shirts out of the way and their pants mostly off. Yunho gets one leg caught up in his jeans when Hongjoong decides he’s done being generous by waiting the ten seconds it would take to get them flung to a far corner, but it’s fine, great even, because Hongjoong’s skin is hot and his cock is damp where it slides sticky wet in the seam of Yunho’s hip.

Yunho presses his thumbs into the meat of Hongjoong’s pectorals, licking into his mouth the instant he opens wide on a gasp. There’s a certain tingle in the air now that feels electric. Like the humid stink of ozone right before a lightning strike that keeps Yunho’s blood buzzing and his hair standing up tall on his arms and legs.

“Show me how you like it,” he demands. 

“Figure it out yourself, Mister imprint,” Hongjoong teases, whimpering when Yunho takes the initiative to rub his hands over the swell of his ass, tugs at the base of his tail with a grip bordering on too hard. “Fuck—”

“Next time,” Yunho promises. His hips kick up almost without his control trying to chase the hard bump of Hongjoong’s dick next to his own. “Next time, I swear we will, but—”

“Yeah,” Hongjoong breathes. “Yeah, this is—” His ears flatten and straighten, each time appearing seemingly shorter than the last. “God, fuck, I didn’t think it would feel so—”

There’s a thrilling moment when Yunho bucks his hips hard and Hongjoong sucks in a tense, desperate breath, tongue lolling a little at the side of Yunho’s neck like he can’t remember how to put it back in his mouth. So he does it again, and again, and another time only with one hand fisted around the base of Hongjoong’s tail and the other thumbing over the pinched tight furl of his hole. Yunho doesn’t even recognize that he’s close until Hongjoong goes rigid and spills between them, the hot splash of his cum and the involuntary twitch of his dick pulling Yunho under. 

The air seems to sizzle. Even through the post orgasm haze, Yunho can see a faint flickering blue glow run up the length of Hongjoong’s tail, his ears, over his arms and legs where they’re still shivery with aftershock, until he’s left completely and utterly _human_.

“I think I’m going to miss the ears the most,” Yunho sighs wistfully for form’s sake. He's not going to miss the other parts of the curse — the ones that left Hongjoong bloody and in pain.

Hongjoong snorts. “I’ll buy a headband.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm.” Hongjoong curves down to kiss him tender and sweet until their jaws ache with it. “I’ve got a maid uniform too.”

"I love you," Yunho tells him earnestly. 

Hongjoong only laughs.

**_\--------------_ **

Later, after they’d cleaned up and shakily made the trip over to Yunho’s apartment with comfier accommodations and a better stocked fridge, Hongjoong leans up under Yunho’s chin and asks, “So who was it you went on a date with?”

“I—” Yunho casts around for a name and comes up empty handed. A girl, he thinks, with long hair and — or was it short? Trying to remember is like probing the empty socket of a pulled tooth, a void in his memory that aches the longer he probes at it. He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. They weren’t you and it’s not like I’m going to see them again anyway.”

Hongjoong bashfully hides his flushed pink face into his hands. “Stop.”

“Why are you getting shy _now_? I literally touched your dick less than an hour ago.” Yunho pokes his cheek, grinning. “Hyung, we had magic curse breaking sex. We should probably high-five.”

“That’s weird,” Hongjoong says fondly, still dutifully offering up a hand for Yunho to smack.

He curls their fingers together instead. “Gotcha.”

They watch a collection of black birds fly by the open balcony window. One must be carrying a shard of glass in their beak, because it catches the light, shines a faint blue for a blink and you miss it moment.

“Hongjoong.”

“Hm?”

Yunho pulls him in close. “I do have you, right?”

“Yeah.” Hongjoong squeezes their fingers together tight, no space left between them so the pulse of their heartbeats thumping in time feels like the steady thread of a connection. “You’ve got me.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hyejeong the entire fic: these bitches have given me a five hundred year headache, i'm outtie


End file.
